China Morning Snapshot - 13 November 2018

January delivery contract for LLDPE on Dalian Commodity Exchange regains some strength this morning while PP has not escaped from the red territory. However, the mild recovery generates no immediate impact on the spot market, where traders continue to offer discounts to stimulate sales.

Details on the spot and futures prices are shown in the following table:

Total inventories at Sinopec and CNPC’s warehouses digested 10,000 tons from the previous trading day to 840,000 tons as on 13 November 2018.

Chinese buyers hold pretty tight to the wait-and-see attitude while continue to go fishing for a larger discount in the spot market. “There is still no support for a rebound. We believed the market is nowhere nearing the bottom yet, especially with the current upstream situation,” a converter said.

Uncertain market outlook amid the unresolved trade tension between China and the USA plus with the perception that suppliers need to deplete cargoes for year-end closing encourages such slacken attitude among customers.