Methanol futures plummet! Affected by the dramatic reversal of the situation in the Middle East, international crude oil prices experienced a "cliff like" plunge today (April 8th), directly triggering a chain reaction in the domestic futures market. Domestic crude oil futures fell sharply across the board, with major contracts hitting the daily limit down on a large scale, and the chemical industry chain also experiencing a general decline. On April 8th, the main contract 2605 for methanol futures opened at 3560 yuan/ton, with a highest price of 3603 yuan/ton and a lowest price of 3035 yuan/ton. It closed at 3122 yuan/ton in the closing session, a decrease of 378 yuan or 10.80% from the previous trading day's settlement.
The market generally believes that international oil prices will enter a period of volatile recovery in the short term, and the core focus will be on the progress of the US Iran Islamabad negotiations on April 10th. If the negotiations go smoothly, the situation in the Middle East is expected to experience a temporary cooling off. However, institutions generally believe that even if the conflict ends quickly, oil prices will not be able to return to the pre conflict level of $70 per barrel, and the persistent energy risk premium will not completely disappear. In addition, the damaged chemical facilities cannot immediately resume production. On April 8th, the methanol market price index was 2737.55, a decrease of 61.49 from the previous working day and a decrease of 2.20% month on month. It is expected that domestic methanol prices will still have some resilience in the short term.
On the cost side, there is a surge in demand, and individual factories continue to raise prices after rising. Due to the longer delivery cycles of some manufacturers, there is a phenomenon of high priced restocking for urgent orders from mid to downstream enterprises. Under the support of pre-sale orders, individual factories have no short-term shipping pressure. However, the sharp drop in crude oil prices has led to a resurgence of bearish sentiment among midstream and downstream enterprises. Even for first-time purchases, caution has been exercised in chasing higher prices, resulting in limited new trading volume this week. Overall, the emission reduction effect of individual factories is still present, and the market supply and demand fundamentals are relatively optimistic, especially with some individual units undergoing maintenance or logistics delays. The spot supply of DMC and raw rubber in the market is still tight, and there is a certain demand for replenishment in the middle and lower reaches. In the short term, the organic silicon market will maintain a high price operation.
107 glue and silicone oil market: This week, the mainstream price of 107 glue is 15000-15500 yuan/ton, and the price of silicone oil is 16000-16600 yuan/ton. On the supply side, DMC and linear bodies operate at high levels, providing stable cost support for 107 adhesive. However, downstream silicone adhesive companies are quite cautious in the face of high priced raw materials. On the one hand, silicone adhesive companies have completed a round of replenishment in the early stage, and the current inventory level can still support short-term production; On the other hand, the recovery pace of the terminal construction and home decoration market is mild, and rubber companies do not have strong expectations for order growth. Therefore, their acceptance of high priced new orders for 107 rubber is limited, and actual transactions are mostly concentrated in small orders for essential needs. The market presents a characteristic of "upward quotation and stagnant transactions". Industry players are generally observing the changes in the start-up of individual factories and the price adjustment trends of top 107 rubber suppliers, and it still takes time to verify the high price and volume increase. The silicone oil market is more affected by disturbances from the additive side: due to the continuous negative load reduction operation of monomer factories, the supply of its by-product trimethylchlorosilane has significantly decreased. Sanjia is a key raw material for silicon ether (hexamethyldisiloxane), which is also one of the important additives in the production of silicone oil. With the tightening of tertiary supply, some silicon ether enterprises have insufficient raw material supply, resulting in shortages and reduced production, driving the price of silicon ether to soar rapidly to 33000-35000 yuan/ton. However, the transmission of high prices is not smooth, and most silicone oil companies still focus on digesting the silicon ether inventory stored in the early stage, showing obvious resistance to the current high priced silicon ether spot. Even if some silicone oil companies face the pressure of bottoming out raw materials, they still choose to purchase in small quantities. Therefore, the high price trading volume of silicon ether is average, and it has fallen into a stalemate pattern of "having a price but no market". In the short term, silicone oil companies remain strong supported by high costs.
In terms of demand, silicone rubber companies have average conversion capacity for high priced raw materials. The previous round of price increase letter is still being implemented, facing another rise in costs. The April price increase letter has not yet made any progress, indicating that there is a significant resistance to cost transmission. Therefore, the procurement of 107 rubber and silicone oil remains in high demand in the near future.