Acrylic Staple Fibre Market Gains Momentum in Response to High Acrylonitrile Prices

China: Acrylic Staple Fiber (ASF) prices have recently risen in the Chinese market, accompanied by the inclining feedstock Acrylonitrile costs. Although ASF factories have not yet disclosed their pricing strategy, the industry has agreed that product prices will rise. However, there is still disagreement on how the price increase will happen and to what level it will reach.

According to the ChemAnalyst database, the price for ASF 1.5D rose by 1.3% and was assessed at USD 2430/MT FOB Qingdao during the week ending 10th February 2023.

Considering the raw material view, ASF has turned positive since the Acrylonitrile price moved up after the New Year holiday. The unplanned outage of Lihuayi's facility, which lasted for 5-7 days, is partly responsible for this round of feedstock price increases. A few market players are also making a big deal out of the opening of the 200KT Acrylonitrile unit under the Hainan Fine Chemical Industry. This has increased the likelihood of some price relief for ASF in the upcoming weeks, together with the reopening of Lihuayi's Acrylonitrile line.

From the perspective of the ASF facilities, the price increase is imminent, given the higher feedstock prices. However, it is discovered that the inventory of significant ASF still exceeds 10,000 tonnes. Meanwhile, according to the downstream mills, the higher raw material prices have encouraged some of them to stock up in advance, accelerating the destocking of ASF factories and somewhat increasing the price of the material. Since it is still unknown how prices will generally move for Acrylonitrile in March, attention should also be paid to the actual feedstock market.

Consequently, ChemAnalyst projects that "ASF price will have small increases in February 2023 to ensure the buying excitement of yarn mills amid the improvement in feedstock Acrylonitrile prices. Thus, high production costs might lead to a marginal hike in ASF prices in the coming week."