1、 Market Overview
In the past week (August 5-11), the spot price of PA6 remained stable at 12500 yuan/ton, and the market trend remained flat and organized; As of August 11th, spot prices have risen, with a daily increase of 1.60%, and the quoted price has risen to 12700 yuan/ton. From the perspective of cyclical price, the short-term price was at a low level in the early stage. With the price increase, the positions of the 10-60 day cycle all reached a high range, and the annual cycle price was at a medium high level; At the moving average level, the short-term moving average has crossed the medium – to long-term moving average upwards, and the market has started a round of upward trend. Spot prices have shown signs of short-term super rise.
2、 Cost analysis
The weekly settlement price of upstream raw material caprolactam has recently stopped falling and stabilized, and factory quotations have remained firm, providing strong bottom support for slicing costs. Recently, the crude oil market has fluctuated and rebounded, driving the sentiment of the chemical fiber and chemical industry sector to rebound; Part of the equipment in the caprolactam industry is undergoing maintenance, and the supply of raw materials in stock is tightening. The raw material prices are firm, and the downward space for PA6 production costs is limited. Combined with the recent increase in factory prices for slicing, favorable raw material costs have begun to spread downstream for nylon slicing, laying the foundation for this week’s spot price increase.
3、 Supply and demand analysis
1. Supply side
Part of the production lines of domestic PA6 production enterprises have entered the maintenance cycle, and the overall operating load of the industry has slightly decreased, resulting in a slowdown in the increase of spot goods in the market. The accumulated inventory in the early stage of the factory has been consumed for a period of time, and the pressure on spot inventory has been alleviated; The manufacturer’s shipping mentality is firm, actively raising spot prices, tightening the supply of spot goods in the market, and favorable prices on the supply side.
2. Demand side
The downstream textile and nylon industry is gradually entering a stocking window period, and the activity of downstream factories in acquiring essential goods has increased; Textile companies purchase raw materials in advance and prepare production orders for autumn and winter fabrics. The concentrated replenishment of downstream customers has driven the recovery of spot transactions, coupled with the bullish mentality of traders, actively replenishing warehouses and acquiring goods, and the supply-demand pattern has turned tighter, driving up the price of sliced products this week.
4、 Short term forecast
In the short term, the upstream caprolactam price of PA6 remains firm, and the support of raw material costs is stable; The favorable situation of low spot inventory and downstream autumn and winter order stocking still exists, and the overall market trend is strong. But at present, the multi cycle price has reached a high level, and there is a need for oscillation and correction to digest the increase after short-term super rise; The future market is likely to fluctuate at a high level, with a slower upward trend. It is necessary to continuously track the price trend of caprolactam raw materials and the follow-up efforts of downstream terminal orders.

1、 Price trend
According to the data monitoring system, on August 11th, the reference price of cyclohexanone in the Shandong region was 8650 yuan/ton. Compared with August 10th (reference price of cyclohexanone was 8400 yuan/ton), the price increased by 250 yuan/ton, an increase of 2.67%; On August 1st (reference price of cyclohexanone 8800 yuan/ton), the price was lowered by 150 yuan/ton, a decrease of 1.70%.
At the beginning of August, the overall market situation of cyclohexanone in Shandong showed a continuous downward trend. The positive support for the cyclohexanone market was insufficient, and the market situation continued to approach a low level. On August 11th, with the improvement of the cost and demand sides, the cyclohexanone market in Shandong ushered in a recovery operation, and the market focus was adjusted upwards. The adjustment range is around 200-300 yuan/ton. As of August 11th, the reference market price for cyclohexanone in Shandong is around 8600-8700 yuan/ton.
2、 Analysis of Core Influencing Factors
In terms of cost: The market for pure benzene on the cost side of cyclohexanone fluctuates frequently. Currently, the low price of pure benzene has rebounded, providing stronger cost support for cyclohexanone. As a result, the cyclohexanone market has increased accordingly.
In terms of supply and demand: Currently, there is not much adjustment in the operating rate of domestic cyclohexanone plants, and the operating and production are basically the same as the previous week. The downstream demand side has slightly improved, and the combination of essential procurement and partial stage replenishment has improved the overall transmission of supply and demand, providing some impetus for market price repair.
3、 Future forecast
At present, the trading atmosphere in the cyclohexanone market in Shandong is mild, with stable performance in the spot supply of cyclohexanone and downstream rigid demand procurement as the main focus. It is expected that in the short term, the cyclohexanone market in Shandong will mainly fluctuate within a certain range. More attention needs to be paid to changes in supply and demand as well as cost side news.

The price of isobutyraldehyde rose in August
According to the commodity market analysis system, as of August 10th, the domestic isobutyraldehyde price was 7266.67 yuan/ton, a significant increase of 9.00% compared to the isobutyraldehyde price of 6666.67 yuan/ton on August 1st. The downstream market for neopentyl glycol has risen, supported by increased demand for isobutyraldehyde. The price of raw material propylene has stopped falling and risen, supported by rising costs and demand, resulting in a significant increase in isobutyraldehyde prices.
Raw material propylene prices stop falling and rise
According to the commodity market analysis system, the price of propylene on August 10th was 8161 yuan/ton, a decrease followed by an increase of 2.94% compared to the price of 7927.67 yuan/ton on August 1st; Compared to August 3rd, the price of propylene has increased by 7861 yuan/ton, with a growth rate of 3.82%. Recently, the US Iran confrontation has continued, with crude oil prices consolidating at high temperatures, which has been transmitted downstream. The price of propylene has stopped falling and risen, and the cost support of isobutyraldehyde has increased.
Downstream isobutyraldehyde demand support
In August, the price of neopentyl glycol rose significantly, and the demand for isobutyraldehyde increased.
Market Overview and Forecast
Analysts believe that propylene prices will stop falling and rise in August, while isobutyraldehyde costs will increase; In terms of demand, the price of neopentyl glycol has risen significantly, and the demand for isobutyraldehyde has increased. Overall, the rising cost of isobutyraldehyde is supported by demand, coupled with a decrease in isobutyraldehyde production, strong willingness of manufacturers to raise prices, a decrease in low-priced sources, and low inventory levels. It is expected that isobutyraldehyde prices will fluctuate and rise in the future.

1、 Price Review
This week (July 29th August 4th), the sulfur market showed a trend of “stabilizing first and then falling”. As of August 4th, the benchmark price of sulfur was 9169.00 yuan/ton, a slight decrease of 0.18% from the beginning of the month. From the perspective of intraday fluctuations, the daily decline on August 4th reached 1.26%, breaking the previous days’ sideways stalemate.
2、 Supply side: Low port inventory, lack of price guidance for refinery bidding and unsuccessful bidding
In terms of inventory, the national port sulfur inventory was 879600 tons, a month on month decrease of 1.08% and a significant year-on-year decrease of 66.22%. The port inventory is at a relatively low level in recent years, forming a certain bottom support for the market.
An important event on the supply side, Dalian Refinery released a tender for 6300 tons of sulfur for future supply, with a delivery date of October 7-10 and a bidding base price of 9110 yuan/ton. The final bid was unsuccessful and no effective transaction price was generated. As an important market indicator, the failure of bidding further increases the wait-and-see mentality within the theater, and the market lacks a clear price anchor point.
3、 Spot market: Trading is sluggish, and the game between buyers and sellers is intensifying
During the week, the price of granular sulfur at ports slightly decreased, with Zhenjiang Port’s granular sulfur at 9150 yuan/ton and Dafeng Port’s granular sulfur at 9130 yuan/ton, a synchronous decrease of 10 yuan/ton compared to the previous day.
The holding enterprise has shipping demands, but the willingness to proactively make external offers has weakened; Downstream buyers are only willing to accept goods at a low price, making it difficult to achieve bulk transactions, and the market only has sporadic small order negotiations. Market research sentiment shows that the proportion of bullish and bearish views in both upstream and downstream markets is only 17%, and the vast majority of practitioners choose to remain flat and wait. The overall market presents a situation where inventory is supported, but demand follow-up is weak, with strong quotations and weak transactions.
4、 Downstream demand: The phosphate fertilizer market is weak, and the raw material pull is limited
The downstream phosphate fertilizer industry as a whole maintained a weak operation and failed to bring strong consumption pull to sulfur.
As of August 5th, the benchmark price of ammonium phosphate was 4450.00 yuan/ton, a decrease of 0.37% compared to the beginning of this month (4466.67 yuan/ton). The market is weakly consolidating, and downstream only needs to replenish inventory. Although there have been a few tender releases, the psychological price of procurement is low, and actual orders are mainly negotiated on a case by case basis;
The ex factory price of 64% diammonium phosphate is 48004850 yuan/ton, but the release of terminal demand is slow, and inquiries and transactions are relatively limited. The factory operation tends to be conservative. There is no centralized replenishment action at the phosphate fertilizer end, and the consumption power of sulfur raw materials is insufficient.
5、 Market prediction
Short term low inventory in ports has a bottoming effect on prices, but the short-term indicators of spot trading technology have weakened. Coupled with the need for downstream phosphate fertilizer demand to recover, the current situation of insufficient follow-up of buying orders is difficult to improve quickly. Refinery bidding failed due to lack of direction guidance, and the wait-and-see attitude of operators continues.
Overall, analysts believe that sulfur may continue its weak consolidation pattern in the short term. Focus on tracking the shipment dynamics of refineries, changes in port inventory, and the pace of raw material replenishment for phosphate fertilizer enterprises in the future.

Recently, the price of lithium carbonate has fluctuated downward and adjusted weakly. As of August 4th, the benchmark price of battery grade lithium carbonate was 139000 yuan/ton, a decrease of 16.27% from the previous month. The fundamentals of lithium carbonate continue to recover and the supply and demand pattern is relatively tight, but why does the market price continue to fluctuate and decline, and break out of the special trend of “strong reality, weak price”.
Strong fundamentals
The strong characteristics of the current lithium carbonate fundamentals are very clear. On the demand side, the two core tracks of new energy vehicles and energy storage continue to thrive, with downstream battery manufacturers receiving full orders. In August, the month on month growth rate of domestic battery companies’ production scheduling remained stable at 6% -8%. The demand for power batteries has steadily recovered, with high capacity utilization rates and stable support for demand. The overall demand resilience far exceeds market expectations. The supply side disturbance continues to ferment, and multiple factors such as policy control of overseas lithium mining resource countries, geopolitical conflicts, extreme weather in Argentina, and centralized maintenance of domestic lithium salt enterprises have led to limited short-term lithium salt supply growth. At the same time, the industry’s inventory continues to decrease, and the market has achieved 12 consecutive weeks of destocking. As of the week ending July 30th, the social inventory has dropped to 114300 tons, and the degree of destocking of social inventory continues to expand. The overall inventory structure presents differentiated characteristics, with downstream and circulation links continuously digesting inventory, while only upstream smelters have slightly accumulated inventory. The overall inventory pressure in the industry continues to ease, and there is no negative drag on the spot market due to accumulated inventory.
Long term pessimistic expectations
Against the backdrop of overall improvement in short-term supply and demand, inventory, and demand, the core reason for the continued weakness of lithium carbonate prices is that market funds have overdrawn pessimistic expectations in the long run, and the current market trend is completely dominated by the logic of forward supply and demand. The optimistic expectations of the previous surge in energy storage demand in the market have gradually been realized with the mid year performance of lithium battery companies. After the positive results are implemented, funds have begun to shift towards trading negative logic, with a focus on two major dimensions: first, the slowdown in long-term demand growth has raised doubts about the sustainability of subsequent energy storage installation demand, and the market no longer recognizes the demand expectations of high-speed growth in the early stage; Secondly, the long-term supply pressure will be concentrated and released, and the pace of new production capacity in the industry will accelerate. The future loose supply and demand pattern has basically become a market consensus.
Overall, the current lithium carbonate market is in a deep game stage of short-term strong reality and long-term weak expectations, which is also the core source of market differentiation. In the short term, the inventory structure of continuous destocking, the steadily recovering downstream demand, and the tight spot supply and demand pattern have built a solid bottom for spot prices, greatly limiting the downward space for prices; However, in the long-term dimension, weak demand growth and loose expectations of supply increment release, coupled with high valuation pressure from the industrial chain, continue to suppress the prices of far month contracts, resulting in a sustained weak and volatile overall market.
Looking ahead to the future market trend, it is difficult for lithium carbonate to show a unilateral trend, and it is highly likely to maintain a differentiation pattern of near strong and far weak. With the gradual release of pessimistic market sentiment and the support of solid short-term fundamentals, prices are expected to gradually stabilize and operate towards strength; However, the far month contract will continue to be suppressed by the expectation of loose supply and demand in the future, and the valuation repair market has not yet ended. Specific attention still needs to be paid to changes in market supply and demand.