China Petroleum and Chemical Corp., or Sinopec, raised its ex-works butadiene offer price in East China for the second time this week to Yuan 10,100/mt, or $1,346/mt on an import-parity basis, Friday, up Yuan 200/mt or about 2%, market sources said.
On Monday, the state-run company had increased the prices by Yuan 400/mt to Yuan 9,900/mt.
The price hikes come amid market concerns that the domestic supply will tighten as local plants shut for maintenance.
For instance, BASF-YPC shut its 130,000 mt/year butadiene extraction unit at Nanjing Thursday for scheduled maintenance, which will last for about 24 days.
Sinopec Zhenhai Refining & Chemical plans to shut its naphtha-fed steam cracker at Zhenhai, Zhejiang province, from H2 May through end-June for scheduled maintenance, sources close to the company had said.
The cracker, which will be offline for about 40-45 days, is able to produce 1 million mt/year of ethylene
