By Malini Hariharan
The blog was able to talk to a Korean polyolefins producer who was not perturbed by the recent weakness in Chinese demand and was fairly confident of selling October volumes.
“It’s the holiday season so converters do not want to buy. But I see no reason to lower prices. We have sold more than 50% of our October shipments. I think the Chinese buyers will return in the second week of October and we will still have enough time to receive orders and make shipments,” he said quite confidently.
But he was cautious enough to encourage his sales team to become more active in other markets around the world.
“I could manage some deals with some longstanding customers; we have some good markets in the Middle East and Africa,” he added.
With October out of the way, producers have only two more month to close the year. And it looks like 2010 will not be a bad year. Integrated margins could have been better but they were not in negative territory as had been widely feared by the industry.
“I think the market will remain stable to weak in the fourth quarter; I do not expect prices to crash but there are also not likely to rise very fast. There will be increased supply from the new Saudi plants and also Borouge. These volumes will not crash the market but it will soften a bit,” the Korean producer predicted.
With one year out of the way the blog is now accepting predictions for 2011.