ACP discussions typically end on the last working day of the month, but negotiating parties in the ACP said that for January contracts, the settlement date would be December 28 rather than December 29.
“That’s 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, 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: Japanese companies JXTG Nippon Oil and Energy and Idemitsu Kosan, ExxonMobil and South Korean companies S-Oil and SK Global Chemical.
Typically there have been seven ACP buyers: BP, Taiwan’s Capco and Oriental Petrochemical (Taiwan) Corp., Japanese companies Mitsui Chemicals and Mitsubishi Chemical, and China’s Yisheng Petrochemical and Jiangsu Shenghong Chemical Fiber Co.
–Rohan Menon, rohan.menon@spglobal.com
–Edited by Wendy Wells, wendy.wells@spglobal.com
