Asia’s May PTA contract price settles up $50-60/t

20 July 2007 08:16  [Source: ICIS news]

SINGAPORE (ICIS news)--Purified terephthalic acid (PTA) buyers and sellers have largely settled their May contract price for China up $50-60/tonne from April settlements, market players said on Friday, the increase due to higher feedstock costs and stable demand. 

 

Contracts had been settled on a retroactive basis at $950-960/tonne CFR (cost and freight) China, except for one major end-user in Jiangsu in eastern China which had yet to agree to sellers’ prices. The majority of leading consumers had agreed to settle at $950/tonne CFR, with credit terms of 90 days.

 

A handful of them were heard to have agreed to $960/tonne CFR China but with sellers’ promises of large rebates in subsequent months.

 

“We agreed to the higher price [of $960] because it would be too complicated to change the letters of credit already given in, so we’ll get a slightly more generous rebate for subsequent months,” said an official from Zhejiang Yuan Dong, a major end-user based in Shaoxing in eastern China.

 

“The May final prices had come as no surprise”, despite the long drawn out discussions for a settlement over the past two points, said a Korean trader who sells Taiwanese and Korean PTA into China.

 

Meanwhile, discussions to settle the June price continued to drag on, even as the July price had already been settled at $920-940/tonne CFR on a tentative basis.

By: Salmon Aidan Lee
+65 6780 4359

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