The amount of methanol can do more

Recently, a very significant feature of the methanol market is that the amount of energy can be continuously lost, especially the open interest. Pre-holiday methanol ** total positions less than 8,000 hands, almost back to the initial level of the methanol ** contract launched. The continuous shrinking of quantitative energy means that the differences between the long and short sides are small, and there is little probability of a trend trend in the later period. Although the probability of strong methanol is greater from the fundamentals, it is not appropriate to rush to do more in the context of shrinking quantity, and convenience is the strong pressure of 2860-2880. Operationally, if Masukura goes up in the later period of the ME1301 contract, investors may follow suit.

I. Macroeconomic environment Lido On October 1, the China PMI for manufacturing industry in September released by the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing and the National Bureau of Statistics Service Survey was 49.8%, up 0.6% from the previous month. The index has been in May this year. Since then, it has picked up. Among the major sub-indexes, only a few indices have declined slightly, and most indices have rebounded to different degrees. In particular, the major leading index such as the new order index and raw material inventory index rebounded, the policy effect of steady growth in the early stages gradually emerged, and the economic operation gradually bottomed out. Steady signs of stabilization. Once the GDP data, which will be released this week, has improved, the supportiveness of economic stabilization expectations for financial markets will be strengthened in the short term.

Second, the spot market price was firm. Affected by the weakening of market prices and the concentration of imported goods, the price of methanol on the southeastern coast of the pre-holiday period fell, but the spot price remained strong on the whole. In the import market, the seller’s offer was relatively firm and the market was in a stalemate. On the domestic market, before the holiday, due to the early end of stocking by some buyers, the price of the methanol sellers in the east of East China was weak, and the port market declined slightly, but the Jiangsu canning price remained at 2780 yuan/ton or more. On the last week before the holiday, as some sellers left early, the market price increased slightly. As the downstream stocking situation is not obvious, there is a short-term post-holiday demand for replenishment.

Third, the supply will increase in the latter part of September. Affected by the relative concentration of partial methanol plant shutdowns in the Northwest and Henan, coupled with the downturn in the coke market, part of the northern part of the coke oven gas methanol plant has been suspended in limited production status. The supply of methanol was obviously reduced, and the net statistical loss in Qinghai, Gansu, and Shaanxi was nearly 80,000 tons. With the successful restart of the main methanol plant in the northwest, it is expected that the domestic methanol supply will increase significantly in September compared with September.

On the import side, according to the data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the amount of imported methanol in China has risen to 420,000 tons in August, which is a very significant increase from June to July. In September, the actual import volume of methanol imported from East China and South China by CBI statistics was around 400,000 tons. We expect the amount of imported methanol to remain at the level of 400,000 tons in October.

Fourth, the downstream industry needs to improve statistics Statistics in all aspects of the author found that the actual demand for methanol in September increased. The increase in formaldehyde consumption contributed more to the improvement of methanol demand. Under the demand season, the demand for sheet steel increased. The operating rate of formaldehyde equipment in most parts of the country rose by 5 to 20 percentage points. As glacial acetic acid and MTBE were affected by the centralized shutdown and maintenance of the plant and refinery, the operating rate fell in September. Due to the limited drop in the operating rate of the two industries and the small proportion of methanol demand, the impact on methanol demand is also limited. In the last week of September, with the restart of the Byaco plant and the increase in the start-up load of Shandong Yankuang, the operating rate of the glacial acetic acid industry also increased significantly by 15% to 53%. In addition, the operating rate of dimethyl ether and MMA in September remained generally stable. In October, the demand for methanol from glacial acetic acid, dimethyl ether, MTBE, and MMA was expected to increase with the restart or upgrade of some plants. In addition, Ningbo Haoyuan's methanol-to-olefins project will be put into operation soon. The daily methanol consumption of the project will reach 5,000 tons, and the annual increase in methanol demand will be as high as 1.8 million tons.

Overall, we are optimistic about the downstream demand for methanol.

In summary, although the supply of methanol is expected to increase, I believe that the gradual improvement in downstream demand for methanol will have a greater impact on prices. In the later period, as long as there are no major problems in the macro environment, the probability of strong methanol oscillation is higher.