In the second week of July, the textile raw material market delivered a sharply divergent report card. PTA led the gains with a 2.25% weekly increase and an annual surge of 21.8%, while acrylonitrile sank 4.20% to the bottom. Polyester filament yarns all declined, while cotton yarn and viscose remained flat. This is not a simple price fluctuation, but a concentrated reflection of the supply-demand dynamics and cost transmission capabilities across different segments of the industrial chain.
PTA's Strength: Resonance of Cost and Demand
PTA's price rose from 5,780 yuan/ton to 5,910 yuan/ton, a 2.25% weekly gain, with a year-on-year increase of 21.80%. The core logic supporting this strength comes from both ends: upstream PX prices remain elevated due to international crude oil volatility and Asian plant maintenance, directly pushing up PTA production costs; downstream polyester operating rates stay above 88%, ensuring rigid demand for PTA. This pattern of "cost push and demand pull" is unlikely to break in the short term. For polyester plants, strong PTA means higher raw material procurement costs, and whether these can be passed downstream depends on the recovery of end-use fabric orders.
Acrylonitrile's Plunge: Pincer Attack of New Capacity and Weak Demand
In stark contrast to PTA's strength, acrylonitrile fell 4.20% weekly, dropping from 9,533 yuan/ton to 9,133 yuan/ton. Although it still shows a 15.61% year-on-year gain, such a sharp weekly decline has already released a clear bearish signal. Acrylonitrile's downstream is mainly ABS resin and acrylic fiber. Currently, the ABS industry, due to tepid recovery in end-use sectors like home appliances and automobiles, has seen operating rates fall below 70%, leading to significantly slower procurement of acrylonitrile. Meanwhile, new domestic acrylonitrile capacity is being released intensively, shifting market supply from tight to loose. This reversal in supply-demand dynamics is the root cause of the price decline. Acrylic fiber producers may become beneficiaries of this price drop, as their raw material cost pressure will ease.
Polyester Filament Yarn's Broad Decline: A Signal of Blocked Demand Transmission
Polyester FDY, DTY, and POY fell 1.68%, 1.28%, and 0.77% respectively this week, forming a "scissors gap" with rising PTA. This phenomenon indicates that the cost pressure from the polyester segment has not been effectively transmitted downstream to the filament yarn segment. The downstream of polyester filament yarn is the weaving sector, which currently faces insufficient orders with operating rates around 60%, leaving them highly intolerant of high raw material prices. Squeezed between rising PTA and falling filament yarn prices, polyester plants are seeing their profit margins narrow rapidly. If end-use demand does not show clear improvement in the next two weeks, polyester plants may be forced to reduce operating rates to alleviate inventory pressure, which would then weaken PTA's demand support.
Cotton Yarn and Viscose: Market Stalemate Behind Stable Prices
Cotton yarn 32S and 21S edged up 0.61% and 0.28% respectively, while viscose staple fiber and rayon yarn prices remained flat. Cotton prices fell 0.92% this week, but cotton yarn still managed a slight increase, suggesting that spinning mills are trying to hold prices firm. The cotton textile industry currently faces a dilemma of "high costs, weak demand": cotton prices are up 16.48% year-on-year, yet end-use garment orders have not grown in tandem. If yarn companies cannot effectively pass on costs downstream, their Q3 profits will face severe erosion. Viscose staple fiber prices have been flat at 14,200 yuan/ton for several consecutive weeks, with upstream and downstream in a stalemate, waiting for clear order signals to break the equilibrium.
Industry Impact and Future Outlook
This week's price divergence is essentially a concentrated outbreak of supply-demand contradictions across different segments of the industrial chain. The rise of PTA and fall of acrylonitrile respectively represent the typical trajectory of upstream cost-driven varieties and midstream capacity-expanding varieties. The decline of polyester filament yarn exposes the vulnerability of the intermediate processing stage. For textile enterprises, the most critical strategy now is to hedge risks on a "by-variety, by-segment" basis:
- For PTA-related products, buyers should moderately increase inventory to lock in lower prices, but be wary of pullback risks from potential polyester operating rate cuts.
- For acrylonitrile-related products, adopt a hand-to-mouth procurement strategy, waiting for prices to bottom out further.
- Cotton yarn companies should prioritize digesting existing inventory, avoiding large-scale stockpiling under high cotton prices.
Overall, the third-quarter textile raw material market is likely to maintain a pattern of "strong upstream, weak midstream, and wait-and-see downstream." The real inflection point depends on whether end-use apparel consumption can show a substantive recovery before the 'golden September and silver October' season.