The Asian purified terephthalic acid margin fell to a record low on Friday, sinking to minus $108.89/mt last Friday compared with minus $77.98/mt a day earlier, as a result of bullish paraxylene feedstock market amid tight PX supplies, market sources said.
The PTA margin is a record low since Platts started assessing the market in 1995.
The CFR Taiwan/China PX price spiked $52.5/mt, or 3.7%, day on day to $1,466/mt Friday.
The Asian PX market was driven by tight supply concerns from Japan and South Korea amid unplanned outages.
Last Thursday, Japan's Idemitsu Kosan shut its 220,000 b/d crude distillation unit at its Chiba refinery after a fire. Its 265,000 mt/year PX plant in Chiba has not been affected so far by the CDU shutdown but market sources said the PX operations would likely be affected if the CDU was shut for a long time.
Japan's JX Nippon Oil and Energy also shut two CDUs -- a total processing capacity of 205,000 b/d -- at its Mizushima-B refinery, in western Japan, Friday after it found that the company had violated safety regulations with regard to LPG tanks at the refinery.
The CDU shutdown has been affecting JX's PX plant operations.
Market sources said JX was not able to raise the operating rate of its 400,000 mt/year PX plant in Chita, central Japan, from 80-90% due to a feedstock shortage after an unplanned shutdown at its Mizushima-B refinery, which supplies its feedstock.
JX has two PX units at its Mizushima-A plant as well, each with a capacity of 250,000 mt/year, which are also running at reduced rates of around 90% due to the shutdown of the Mizushima-B plant.
Besides, South Korea's Samsung Total shut its entire petrochemical complex in Daesan Friday due to a power failure. Its aromatics plant is able to produce 610,000 mt/year of PX. The company began the restart process later Friday but market sources said it would take around five days to restore full operations at the aromatics unit.
Despite the bullish PX, the upside of the Asian PTA market was limited due to scarce PTA demand as it is the off-season for downstream polyester. On Friday, the CFR China PTA price edged up $4/mt to $1,016/mt during the same period.
The polyester sales/production ratio dropped 100% last Friday compared with 150% earlier last week.
"This is a very difficult time for Asian PTA producers," a market source said.
Market sources said PTA producers would likely cut plant operations.
