Recently PX market conditions re-experienced sharp fluctuations and prices have declined sharply in the last few days.
In the Asian PX market, prices dipped by US $137 to US $1462 / ton (FOB Korea), while European PX market fell US $116 to US $1405 / ton (FOB Rotterdam). According to statistics, China's PX production capacity was 9.06 million tons in 2010, while downstream PTA production capacity was about 19.96 million tons. Based on the calculation that one ton PTA needs 0.655 tons PX, with capacity utilization rate at 80 percent, the gap is more than 1 million tons.
New PTA production capacity has gradually increased by 3.7 million tons since July 2011, while PX production capacity to be put in to operation will be just 1.80 million tons in the whole year.
In addition, 2012 will witness a large increase in PTA capacity and will add around 10 million tons next year. Therefore, supply shortage in PX market is expected to continue in the short term, PX prices are likely to maintain high-level volatility.