Dry SBS and Road Modification-Used SBS Markets Reach Stalemate
After late April, China’s SBS market rebounded. With weak fundamentals, SBS price rise was slow and mild. For example, Sinopec’s 791H price rose for three times, and the total price rise was RMB 600/mt. Even so, the average prices did not change a lot. Except for some dry rubber grades used for the production of transparent shoe materials, the prices of most dry rubber grades moved sideways. The sluggish transactions in the road modification market, the slow consumption of social inventories and news regarding the raw materials and SBS units will bring some uncertainties to SBS market.
Raw materials: The oversea butadiene market has been performing strongly recently, which has supported SBS market somehow. As the price spread between Chinese market and oversea markets enlarges slightly, a window may open for the arbitrage trading. Sinopec Maoming Petrochemical’s 2# butadiene unit does not restart as expected. The butadiene units at PetroChina Fushun Petrochemical, Inner Mongolia Jiutai New Material and Sinopec Maoming Petrochemical have restarted or will restart. Commissioning of Zhejiang Petroleum & Chemical’s phase II 250kt/a butadiene project will be postponed to July. The butadiene units at Shandong Shouguang LuQing Petrochemical and Gulei Petrochemical will be put into use in July, and some of their resources will be available in the market. Styrene producers’ inventories were low, and some force majeure factors caused the styrene production to drop. As a result, the styrene price surged. However, in late May, the styrene price pulled back.
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