China Petroleum and Chemical Corp., or Sinopec, cut its ex-works butadiene prices by 13-16%, effective Monday, end-users said Tuesday.
The largest reduction was in North China where Sinopec Sabic Tianjin is selling butadiene at Yuan 13,000/mt, or about $1,726/mt on an import parity basis. The current price is down about 16%, or Yuan 2,500/mt, from Yuan 15,500/mt on October 25.
But for its subsidiaries in East and South China, prices were reduced by Yuan 2,000/mt, or nearly 13%, to Yuan 13,500/mt.
The East China subsidiaries include Sinopec Yangzi Petrochemical, Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical and Zhenhai Refining and Chemical while the South China units include Guangzhou Petrochemical and Maoming Petrochemical.
The latest price cuts were due to poor local demand for styrene-butadiene-rubber, styrene-butadiene-styrene and acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene rubber.
Cracker operators in Japan and Taiwan have reduced their runs due to poor demand and narrow margins for olefins.
In Taiwan, Formosa Petrochemical will operate its three naphtha-fed steam crackers at Mailiao at about 80% of capacity in November. The runs were cut at the end of October. They had been operating at full capacity before that.
