On December 27, the price of West Texas Light Crude Oil (WTI) futures for February delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose sharply by $4.69 to close at $46.22 a barrel, an increase of 8.6%. Meanwhile, Brent crude oil futures on the North Sea, delivered on the London ICE European Futures Exchange in February next year, rose $4 to close at $54.47 a barrel, an increase of 7.9%, both of which reached their biggest one-day gains since November 30, 2016.
However, this increase can not make up for the decline in more than two months. Brent oil prices have fallen by more than 7% so far in December; WTI futures prices have fallen by about 39% compared with the recent high set on October 3, and Brent oil prices have fallen by about 37% compared with the October high.

Source: Moebe
Wanhua Chemistry Announcement: Since January 2019, the listing price of Wanhua Chemical Group Co., Ltd. in China's aggregated MDI distribution market has been 12,500 yuan/ton (400 yuan/ton lower than that in December 2018), and 12800 yuan/ton in the direct market (700 yuan/ton lower than that in December 2018); the listing price of pure MDI will be announced separately.
Frequent maintenance and shutdown
In a chemical park in Fengxian, a petrochemical company that mainly produces PTA is undergoing annual shutdown and renovation.
Compared with previous years, this year's overhaul machine is obviously earlier. On November 22nd, the security master of the duty room at the factory gate said that during the period of shutdown and maintenance, the workers still came to work normally, but the work content was not production, but maintenance of equipment and equipment.
In the current market environment of crude oil price plunge, many chemical enterprises like PTA production are experiencing the challenges of price drop and profit margin plunge.
The north of Zhejiang and the south of Jiangsu are the most concentrated areas of domestic chemical fibre enterprises. Over the past month, there has been a steady flow of news about equipment overhaul in chemical fibre factories in this area. Following last month's centralized production reduction, the second round of production reduction in December has begun: polyester factories in Tongxiang, Shaoxing, Ningbo and other places (FDY belongs to one kind of polyester) will gradually start centralized maintenance. At the same time, the industry monitoring of the start-up rate is declining, polyester factories try to reduce the start-up rate in order to achieve de-inventory.
Not only petrochemical enterprises, but also inorganic chemical enterprises frequently reduce the start-up rate. In mid-December, the plant start-up of chlor-alkali enterprises in Shandong decreased again, and the supply of goods decreased. According to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics, the output of caustic soda in November was 2.839 million tons, which was 3.0% lower than that of the previous year and 2.0% lower than that of the previous year.
At the end of the year, chemical industry will have a hard time.
The factory chooses to stop production and renovate in advance at this time point. In fact, it is also a helpless move for enterprises under the pressure of current production and operation.
Whether it is the current global economic data performance or the forecast of authoritative research institutions, it shows that the global economic situation in 2019 may face severe challenges, which will naturally lead to market worries about the weakening of future oil consumption, thus affecting oil price performance. During the global economic downturn, industries will reduce production, residents will restrain consumption, transportation and petrochemical products will decline in oil demand. (Source: Moebe)