Chinese distributors withhold LLDPE offers on bullish outlook

27 July 2011 09:19  [Source: ICIS news]

SHANGHAI (ICIS)--Many distributors in China are withholding their offers for linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) in the domestic market on expectations that prices will rise further in August because of tight supply, industry sources said on Wednesday.

Many local distributors had raised their offers on Monday as they expected local supply to be tight in August because of scheduled maintenance at several local plants, distributors said.

The distributors went on to withhold their offers for LLDPE as their bullish outlook was reinforced when local producer Sinopec announced on Wednesday that its July allocations for southern and northern China were sold out, the distributors said.

The unplanned shutdown of Formosa Plastics Corp’s LLDPE plant in Taiwan on Tuesday further boosted the distributors’ sentiment, they said.

Taiwanese product accounted for 2.9% of China’s total LLDPE import of 1.13m tonnes in the first half of this year, according to China Custom’s data.

Sporadic offers for locally produced and imported LLDPE were at yuan (CNY) 11,000-11,300/tonne ($1,708-1,755/tonne) EXWH (ex-warehouse) on Wednesday, against buying ideas at CNY11,000-11,250/tonne ex-warehouse, according to Chemease, an ICIS service in China.

($1 = CNY6.44)

Additional reporting by Angie Li, Lizzie Yu and Ingrid Fu

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By: Amy Yu

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