International investment bank news: The oil market is racing against time, and if the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz continues until June, the factors that previously worked together to curb the rise in oil prices caused by the Iran War may no longer be effective. Despite losing nearly 1 billion barrels of supply, crude oil futures have not broken through the 2022 high due to the market entering the crisis with a buffer and investors expecting the strait to reopen.
Thursday (May 14th) Organic Silicon Market Observation: Leading Companies Actively Squeeze Water, Organic Silicon Enters a New Stage of Price Correction and Gaming
Recently, the domestic silicone market has shown a typical confrontation pattern of "supply side support" and "weak demand side". As of May 13th, the mainstream quotation range for DMC is 14800-15500 yuan/ton, with metal silicon 421 # stable at 9300-9700 yuan/ton in the Xinjiang market, silicone oil 16600-17000 yuan/ton, and raw rubber 15500-16100 yuan/ton. On the surface, prices remain relatively strong, but there is obvious internal differentiation: due to sufficient pre-sale orders in the early stage, multiple individual factories have placed orders until mid to early June, with low inventory levels and limited short-term external sales. DMC spot circulation continues to be tight, and some manufacturers are tentatively exploring local price increases as a result.
However, the actual transaction situation contrasts with the popularity of the quotation. Downstream enterprises are mainly consuming their own inventory, and the overall trading atmosphere in the market is quiet, mostly consisting of sporadic small orders. The demand side is facing triple pressure: firstly, although there is incremental growth in emerging fields such as new energy and photovoltaics, the threshold is high, making it difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises to enter, and profits are squeezed; Secondly, traditional fields have entered a off-season, and the pace of terminal recovery has slowed down; Thirdly, exports are trending towards weakness. These factors collectively lead to a lack of confidence among midstream and downstream enterprises in the sustained rise of future prices, resulting in a delay in large-scale orders.
In this week's market operation, the most noteworthy issue is not the narrow fluctuations in price ranges, but the substantial shift in pricing strategies of leading companies. Yesterday, a large domestic organic silicon leader conducted a coordinated price adjustment for its core products: DMC was adjusted back to 15100 yuan/ton, and raw rubber was adjusted back to 15500 yuan/ton. This action has been interpreted by the market as actively "squeezing water" - bringing online quotes closer to actual transaction levels.
From an analytical perspective, the significance of this price adjustment goes far beyond a single price change. Firstly, it breaks the long-standing chaos of "inflated pricing" in the industry. Previously, some companies' listed prices were disconnected from their actual transaction prices, which could easily lead to downstream misjudgments and game deadlocks. The leading companies took the lead in the correction, essentially stabilizing the industry order through transparent pricing. Secondly, multiple top individual factories have stated that they will cooperate with the adjustment, which means that the industry is shifting from "fighting on its own" to "cooperating and governing together". The implementation of this consensus not only prevents supply imbalance caused by significant price fluctuations, but also maintains supply-demand balance while ensuring reasonable profits for enterprises.
The explanation from relevant personnel of the enterprise also confirms this point: this adjustment is a rational correction of the previous high quotation based on the actual order situation, with the aim of avoiding price signal distortion. It is not an exaggeration to say that emission reduction factors have "dominated" the recent market performance, as well as the profit and growth logic of individual enterprises. In this context, leading companies have chosen to actively adjust rather than continue to rise, reflecting the improvement of industry maturity.