China's recent decision to impose antidumping duty on acrylic fiber imported from Japan, South Korea and Turkey will have limited impact on the feedstock acrylonitrile market, industry sources said this week.
Last Friday, the Ministry of Commerce announced that importers of acrylic fiber from these countries will be required to pay a deposit to customs ranging from 6.1% to 17.8% from April 2.
About 50% of acrylonitrile buyers are from the acrylic fiber industry while acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene accounts for 30% and acrylamide 20%.
A northeast Asia-based trader said that Chinese fiber makers were likely to seek more discount for ACN to offset the antidumping duty.
There could be an oversupply of acrylic fiber in Japan and South Korea as a result of the antidumping duty, a Chinese trader said. And this could lead to a cut in operation rates in Japan, South Korea and Turkey and lower demand for ACN, he said, adding that they might even decide to export the surplus ACN at lower prices.
A Japanese producer, however, disagreed.
"I don't think Japanese ACN producers could compete with China," he said, adding that they were more likely to cut operation rates.
His company had already taken into account the possible impact of antidumping duty and had significantly reduced both acrylic fiber and ACN production, he said.
Several market participants said they saw little impact on the ACN market.
What they expected was that production of acrylic fiber and ACN in China might increase.
Chinese ACN manufacturers might not be interested in offering at lower prices because of a rise in demand, a South Korean producer said. "Markets are long and everyone is stretched to the limit due to demand recession. Now these countries will become less competitive and someone else will take their market share. Overall, [the market] remains unchanged," a market source from India said.
