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The Asian ethylene market has been loosing momentum this week amid thin trading activities due to weakening downstream derivative markets, including styrene monomers, PE and PVC. Besides, the upcoming holidays also limit demand within the region. However, industry experts believed that ethylene costs in Asia would likely to remain on the stable to firmer track given a series of plant shutdown during the first quarter of 2017.

The following table showed the initial scheduled shutdown at some of the regional major crackers. Shutdown period and duration are subjected to changes.

 From January to March 2017, the shutdown at Lotte Chemical Titan, CPC Corporation, IRPC and SK Global resulted in an estimated production loss of more than 250,000 tons of ethylene. More schedule shutdowns are concentrated in quarter 2 of 2017.