Guangzhou China Feb. 22, 2011 - Early in 2011, the prices of pesticide raw materials come to an alternation between rise and decline. Among them, driven by higher crude oil prices, methanol and benzene feedstock prices continued to rise slightly, while inorganic materials was fully down.
In Feb.2011, the price of methanol raw material was about USD418 /t, up 7.1% compared with the same period last year, with an increase of USD7/t on a month-on-month basis. Gas and crude oil supply has a great support on methanol market, and it is estimated that the methanol market is still strong after the Spring Festival. The benzene market is rehabilitating obviously, the average price of benzene, toluene and xylene this month is USD1127/t, USD1110 / t and USD1157 /t, with an increases of 7.3%, 3.3% and 4.0% respectively.
For inorganic raw materials, their prices have a decrease of different degrees, such as yellow phosphorus, liquid chlorine and sulphur. Average price of yellow phosphorus is below USD2239/t, while liquid chlorine was only USD201/t, down about 10~20%.
In December.12, 2010, the output of pure benzenes, methanol , ice acetic acid were 518,000 tonnes, 1,463,000 tonnes and 321,000 tonnes, up 19.4%, 22.3% and 4.6% respectively compared with the same period last year. In 2010, the output of above-mentioned raw materials were 5,531,000 tonnes, 15,743,000 tonnes and 3,839,000, a month to month growth of 12.3%, 18.7%, 26.2% and 29.3% respectively.
Source: CCM International