H2, 2019 China Methanol Market Outlook

H2, 2019 China Methanol Market Outlook

Welcome to SCI Feature again. This is Sunny, the methanol analyst from SCI. Today we’re going to talk about China’s methanol market. In the first half of 2019, China’s methanol prices fluctuated at lows. The downstream demand was insipid, while the supply of both China-origin and imported methanol was sufficient. Thus, it was hard for the methanol prices to move up under the supply-demand imbalance. 

Entering the second half of 2019, the expected operation of the olefin units could bring some new demand. However, there is still a total of 7,300kt/a methanol capacity scheduled to be released. Meanwhile, a large amount of imported methanol will continue to flow into China, given the arbitrage space, the U.S. sanctions on Iran, Venezuela, etc. So the market will remain under supply pressure. Additionally, the output restriction on the natural gas-based methanol and the demand from the methanol fuel field are also needed to be paid attention to. Thus, SCI reckons that China’s methanol prices may experience a periodical rebound in the second half of 2019 but are not very likely to rise by a large margin.

That’s all. For more information, please visit SCI at intl.sci99.com. Thank you.