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After hitting the peak since early February 2017, Asian styrene monomer (SM) market has been steadily following the downtrend on persistent weak demand. However, over the past week, SM cost based on FOB Korea term surged more than $80/ton on an average to reach the highest level since mid April. 

The drastic movement is attributed to the fact that styrene supply within China is tightening due to couple of major shutdowns taking place at the moment. In fact, it is reported that China's Abel Chemical shut its 250,000 tons/year SM unit in Taixing, Jiangsu earlier last week for a two weeks repairing work. In addition, firming upstream benzene costs also plays an important role in pushing SM prices up.

However, Asian players are not very convinced of the sustainability of the current trend, pointing to the fact that demand from derivatives sector including PS and ABS is rather weak. A regional PS producer said, “Our customers are very conservative about making replenishment. We think that the recent hike in the styrene monomer market might peak out soon, hence we prefer to hold cautious stance.”