Nominations for the the January paraxylene Asian Contract Price currently stand at $970-$980/mt CFR, sources involved in the negotiations said Friday.
ExxonMobil has nominated its ACP at $970/mt CFR Asia, while Japan's JXTG Nippon has nominated its ACP at $980/mt, the sources said.
Sources at negotiating parties said the ACP settlement date would likely be December 28 for the January contract, not December 29, even though ACP discussions typically end on the last working day of the month.
"Given that it [December 29] is the last working day of the year, when many people are off, it just makes sense," said an ACP buyer in China.
Negotiations for the December ACP resulted in a major settlement at $910/mt, S&P Global Platts reported earlier.
Taiwan's Oriental Petrochemical Taiwan Corp. settled with ExxonMobil, while South Korea's S-Oil settled with China's Yisheng Petrochemical, company sources said.
Prior to December, September was the last contract to result in a major settlement, at $820/mt, $10/mt higher than the August settlement.
There are five PX ACP sellers in Asia: Japan's JXTG Nippon Oil and Energy and Idemitsu Kosan, ExxonMobil, and South Korea's S-Oil and SK Global Chemical.
Typically there have been seven ACP buyers: BP, Taiwan's Capco and Oriental Petrochemical (Taiwan) Corp., Japan's Mitsui Chemicals and Mitsubishi Chemical, and China's Yisheng Petrochemical and Jiangsu Shenghong Chemical Fiber Co.
