PET bottle chip bottoms out on recovery of export orders

According to CCFGroup, the export order intake of China domestic PET bottle chip in Nov rises to around 380,000 tons, an increase of 27% over the same period last year and 44% from October. This is the first time that the export order intake of PET bottle chip factories has exceeded 350,000 tons since the second half of 2022.

At present, it can be basically confirmed that the export delivery volume of China domestic PET bottle chips before the Spring Festival will be moderate, and it is estimated that the delivery volume in January 2023 can be maintained at 300,000-350,000 tons or even above, but the actual delivery still depends on the final arrangement of the shipping schedule. The export market has picked up somewhat in November for the following reason. First, the prices fall to the low of the year in the fourth quarter, and can even be said to be the low of the past two years; second, the rigid demand always exist, and transactions for small and medium-sized orders is good; third, before Christmas and Spring Festival holidays, large overseas major end-user plants have replenishment demand, which is basically orders delivered after the Spring Festival. At the same time, there have been good expectations for the transformation of China domestic prevention and control policies in markets at home and abroad.

From the perspective of the China domestic market, most of the mainstream bottle chip factories have begun to sell 2023 orders, and Q1 orders of some factories have basically sold out. Although there are new start-ups in the market at the end of 2022, the impact of new production capacity on market supply is expected to be very limited due to the intensively maintenance of plants before the Spring Festival, so the proportion of PET bottle chips exports can still be maintained at more than 35% before the Spring Festival. Overall, the current domestic and export sales orders of PET bottle chip factories is relatively ample, but traders are suggested to pay attention to whether the market confidence can further recovery.

Recently, with the reduction of low-price materials in the PET bottle chip market, traders’ demand for short covering is relatively good. Most of the downstream end-user plants have completed the procurement task in 2022, and they are more than halfway through completing the purchasing of Q1-Q2 orders. The market is in wait-and-see stance in the short-run. Small and medium-sized end-users purchase on need. PET bottle chip spot price has maintained range bound for a long period of time, so after the gradual recovery of external macro environment, domestic price under RMB basis basically touched bottom. In the later stage, pay attention to the intensively delivery of exports at the end of the year and the maintenance of the PET bottle chip plants.