There has been rapid increase in domestic production which in turn likely to reduce the imports of chemical. According to experts from the market June imports to fall by more than 50% compared with May and July imports were likely to fall even further. Many domestic units like Shandong-based Sinochem Hongrun started up its new 1.2 million mt/year reformer in March and was running it at 50% of capacity, producing about 1,200 mt/day of isomer-MX. A producer estimated China's isomer-MX imports in June were only half the quantity imported in May, which was above 50,000 mt. Further supply in the domestic market has risen as the government did not allocate oil products export quotas to independent refiners this year, resulting in the entire output being sold in the domestic market.
