South Korea's benzene exports surged to an all-time high of 169,453 mt in July, according to the country's customs data dating back to 2006. This peak comes amid the start up of new production capacities in the country. The July export volume represents a rise of 28.5% from June. Year on year, South Korea exported 66.3% more benzene in July.
The country saw the start up of three new paraxylene-benzene plants at Ulsan, Daesan and Incheon over the last two months, pushing up benzene exports as a result.
At Ulsan, SK Energy and Japan's JX Nippon Oil and Energy started up their joint venture aromatics plant on June 2. The plant is able to produce 1 million mt/year of paraxylene and 300,000 mt/year of benzene.
On July 2, Samsung Total started production at its No. 2 aromatics plant in Daesan. The plant can make 1 million mt/year paraxylene and 420,000 mt/year of benzene. And in the second half of July, SK Innovation started operations at its Incheon plant, which can make 1.3 million mt/year of paraxylene and 450,000 mt/year of benzene.
The majority of South Korea's benzene exports in July headed to Taiwan. But the export volume of 43,831 mt was down 16.9% from the month before.
The next biggest export market, the US, saw a 29.8% month-on-month increase to 42,960 mt amid an open arbitrage window.
South Korea's benzene exports to China and Japan surged in July. Exports of around 34,834 mt to Japan was almost three times the amount of 12,229 mt in June.
The sharp step-up in exports to Japan was attributed to production issues tightening Japan's domestic supply, a source at a Japanese producer noted.
South Korea exported 29,587 mt of benzene to China in July, more than twice the amount it sent over in June.
