Negotiations for the March Asian contract price for paraxylene reached a major settlement Tuesday at $905/mt CFR, ACP participants said.
The settlement was up $5/mt from February.
Japanese PX producer JX Nippon Oil and Energy settled with Taiwanese purified terephthalic acid producer Oriental Petrochemical (Taiwan) Corp., while ExxonMobil settled with Japanese PTA producer Mitsui Chemicals, both settlements at $905/mt, company sources said.
For a major settlement to happen, two sellers and two buyers need to settle at the same price.
There was also a major settlement in February at $900/mt.
The daily CFR Taiwan/China marker has averaged $916.82/mt in February to date, S&P Global Platts data showed.
There are five paraxylene ACP sellers in Asia -- Japan's JX Nippon Oil and Energy, Idemitsu Kosan, ExxonMobil, South Korea's S-Oil and SK Global Chemical.
Up to now there have been six ACP buyers: BP, Taiwan's Capco and Oriental Petrochemical (Taiwan) Corp., Japan's Mitsui Chemicals and Mitsubishi Chemical, and China's Yisheng Petrochemical.
China's Jiangsu Shenghong Chemical Fiber Co. joined the ACP negotiations in January as a permanent participant on the buying side, while Mitsubishi Chemical's participation as a permanent member remains uncertain following the sale of the company's PTA plants in India and China this year, market sources have said.
