First, the price trend

In August 2018, the methanol market volatility rose. According to the price monitoring of the business community, the price of methanol at the beginning of the month was 2,797 yuan/ton, and the price of methanol at the end of the month was 3,023 yuan/ton. The monthly increase was 8.09%, and the price increased by 15.76% compared with the same period of last year.

Second, the market analysis

Products: China’s methanol prices in August continued to fluctuate and rose, out of the “off-season is not weak” differential market, and the intra-month spot trend is highly correlated, the futures end drives the port spot, and then under the premise of the increase in the set of insurance Mainland China’s spot prices have risen. Therefore, domestically produced goods in East China Port are concentrated in the month, including Nanjing, Changzhou and Taicang. However, while domestically produced goods were concentrated in Hong Kong, China’s imports of methanol also increased significantly in August. In August 2018, China’s methanol industry started to decline slightly compared with that in July. In August, domestic methanol started operating at 66.5% per month, with a monthly decline of 0.6 percentage points. It is worth mentioning that in addition to some of the maintenance of the domestic methanol project in this month, some short-term stops have occurred in the month, such as Yankuang Rongxin, Guizhou Jinchi, etc. In addition, environmental impact factors continue to be in the Soviet Union. The north and Shanxi parts still have limited production/downtime, and this factor needs continuous attention.

Industry: According to the price monitoring of business companies, there were 15 kinds of commodities in the energy sector that rose in the price of commodity prices in August 2018, of which 11 products were increased by more than 5%, accounting for 68.8% of the monitored products in the sector. The top 3 commodities were coke (26.52%), fuel oil (13.54%) and petroleum coke (12.63%). There was one product with a decrease in the chain ratio, and the product that fell was LNG (-11.93%). This month’s average price increase and decrease was 6.83%.

Third, the market outlook

Business community view: On the positive side, under the influence of environmental protection, Shanxi and North Jiangsu coke oven gas methanol projects are still affected. At present, Zhangzhou and Huayu are still parked, Weitian is low, and local supply is still tight. Recently, Zhongyuan Ethylene Jiangsu Shenghong MTO is running smoothly, some raw materials maintain normal mining, and support is formed in the region and surrounding markets. At present, the external disk negotiations are still firm, and the pressure on the mainland main production areas is not large enough to support the spot end. Under the influence of the “guarantee supply” of natural gas, the domestic gas supply reduction in the fourth quarter is expected to be reduced. At that time, it will have a direct impact on the local arrival of goods in the region and East China; the port has limited circulation and the cost of the arrival of the mainland is high. The spot market continued to be strong. For the bearish side, the overall demand for the downstream demand side is still cautious at this stage. Shandong and Huazhong consumption areas just need to follow up; since the beginning of August, the North Port and Sichuan and Chongqing have successively arrived in Hong Kong, and with the import supplement, the port inventory continues. Maintain the incremental trend; in particular, the changes in the previous hedging volume have received much attention and need to be vigilant; in August, the same coal coal concentrating, Shilin, Xinao (second phase) and other devices will be restarted, local supply will tend to impact; In the west, the annual output of 800,000 tons of equipment is partially ignited. It is expected that the products will be produced at the end of September. In the recent period, the futures market has been ups and downs, and some of the decline stages have dragged down the operating mentality of the operators. The methanol analyst of the business community expects that the domestic methanol market will remain strong in the short term