Published on April 5, 2014

Polyester industry continues to remain slow and steady in India. The entire fiber industry has been witnessing slowdown phase, prices for most of the fiber related entities are on their bottom low in last ten years. The immediate manufacturers have already incurred heavy losses and now have decided either to curtail their production or plan for turnarounds.

To begin with polyester feedstock, ethylene prices has been varying throughout this week. Prices have plunged by USD 50/MTS in the month of March, thus adding pricing pressure on its related products like Polyester. Other related chemicals like PTA and Para Xylene has been going through similar scenario. MEG prices reached its all time bottom low in the second week of March. Dragging of MEG prices continue to hit the Polyester industry. Asian and European both the markets are going through low phase in this category of industry. Demand continue to remain slow amid thin trading activities in the country. Downstream product of Polyester is Yarn. They are also keeping their off take of material low due to sluggish demand and poor buying sentiments. With decline in the PTA and MEG, polyester chip markets had also met a very analogous outcome. Semi dull chip markets mainly range bound has declined week over week while the super bright chip emulated the SD chip trend.

Asian polyester, textile and yarn markets were thinly traded amid slow demand. Traders have been waiting for the market sentiments to improve and demand to pick in the latter period. With improvement in the prices MEG and PTA in the last week of March, textile units are yet to gain the momentum. As a result throughout this week Asian polyester filament yarn markets are thinly traded as buyers awaited demand to pick. Polyester staple fiber markets, although saw trivial improvement in demand, poise was still weak and prices continued to soften.