Methanol Weekly Report 07 April 2018

Weekly Price Trend: 02-04-2018 to 06-04-2018

The above graph focuses on the Methanol price trend for the current week. Prices have followed up trend for this week. By the end of the week prices were assessed around Rs 32.75/Kg for Kandla and Rs 32.5/kg Mumbai ports.

Booking Scenario

INDIA&INTERNATIONAL

• This week domestic market prices of Methanol have followed plunged and by the end of the week prices were evaluated at Rs 32.75/kg for Kandla and Rs 32.5/kg for Mumbai ports.     
• CFR India prices were assessed in the range of USD 422/MTS. Prices have increased by USD 38/mt in compares to previous week.
• CFR China prices of methanol were evaluated at USD 365/mt.
• FOB Korea prices of Methanol were evaluated USD 385/mt.
• This week China market has remained soft as major trading activities are not taking place on tomb sweeping holiday.
• As per market players, in near term most of the big plants are going to take maintenance shut down which will minimize the supply of material resulted in escalation in prices.
• Fanavaran Petrochemical Company will shut its Methanol plant on 20 April 2018. The plant will be shut down for annual maintenance schedule. The unit is likely to remain off-stream for around 4-5 weeks. The unit is based at Bandar Imam Khomeini special economic zone of Iran and has the manufacturing capacity of 1 mln mt/year.
• Iran based Zargos Petrochemical Compay will shut down its Methanol unit no 2 for annual maintenance. The unit is expected to go off-stream on Sunday and is expected to remain off-stream for around for around 7 weeks. The unit is based at Asaluyeh in Iran and has the production capacity of 1.65 mln mt/year.
• Salalah Methanol Corp (SMC) has shut down its Methanol plant for annual maintenance turnaround. The unit is likely to remain off-stream for around 45 days.  Unit is based at Salalah in Oman and has the manufacturing capacity of 1.3 million mt/year.
• Canada based Methanex posted its prices for the month of April. The prices posted for Asia Pacific region remain unchanged and were around USD 460/MT. The prices posted for North America region were around USD 496/MT. Prices posted for the region of Europe around Euro 380/MT, remained unchanged for this month.
• China’s Nanjing Chengzhi Yongqing plans to start MTO plant in H1 ’19.
• This week crude oil prices have remained volatile. On Thursday oil prices increased from gains in U.S. equities markets as trade tensions between China and the United States eased, but the advance was limited by strength in the dollar.
• On Thursday, closing crude values have increased. WTI on NYME closed at $63.54/bbl; prices have decreased by $0.17/bbl in compared to last closing prices. While Brent on Inter Continental Exchange increased by $0.31/bbl in compared to last trading and was assessed around $68.33/bbl.
• As per report, U.S. crude production hit a new high, but that was not enough to change the overall bullishness. OPEC and its allies are collectively curbing 1.8 million barrels per day of crude output to help eliminate a global oil glut. The cuts run until the end of 2018 but Saudi Arabia has said they could be extended in some form into 2019.

 $1 = Rs. 64.96
 Import Custom Ex. Rate USD/ INR: 65.90
 Export Custom Ex. Rate USD/ INR: 64.20