Chemical Prices Today (October 15, 2026): Daily Market Trends & Price Changes

Basic chemicals saw 21 of 52 tracked products move, and the skew was emphatically negative — only 3 higher against 18 lower, the most one-sided reading of any segment this week. The three gains were Phenol up 1.60% to CNY 9,550/ton, calcium carbide up 1.57% to CNY 2,580/ton and EVA up 0.59% to CNY 11,467/ton. Everything else fell, led by sulfuric acid down 7.15% to CNY 1,558/ton, Sulfur down 6.95% to CNY 6,669/ton, Lithium carbonate down 2.80% to CNY 104,000/ton, Cobalt down 1.36% to CNY 254,200/ton, Nickel down 1.34% to CNY 119,083/ton, Acetone down 1.31% to CNY 8,500/ton, Acetic acid down 1.03% to CNY 4,810/ton, Potassium chloride down 1.01% to CNY 3,250/ton, Formaldehyde down 0.95% to CNY 1,885/ton, Ammonium sulfate down 0.79% to CNY 1,250/ton, ethyl acetate down 0.79% to CNY 7,200/ton, PET down 0.43% to CNY 8,862/ton, Ethylene glycol down 0.42% to CNY 5,967/ton, Xylene down 0.39% to CNY 8,743/ton, Caustic Soda down 0.32% to CNY 631/ton, Methanol down 0.25% to CNY 3,990/ton, White phosphorus down 0.24% to CNY 28,396/ton and Toluene down 0.18% to CNY 8,967/ton.

The sulphur chain is the story of the day and it is a fertiliser-demand story, not a supply shock. Sulfuric acid and sulfur fell 7.15% and 6.95% respectively, and the same board showed liquid ammonia down 6.29% to CNY 2,733.33/ton — three of the four worst chemical declines of the session all belong to the same fertiliser feedstock complex. The logic runs in one direction: winter phosphate stocking has not started, compound-fertiliser operating rates sit near 32% with high finished-goods inventory, and farmers facing low crop prices are buying only hand-to-mouth. With monoammonium phosphate in Hubei at CNY 3,600–3,700/ton and still probing lower, the acid and sulfur buyers simply stepped away. Sulfur's own supply side is tight in absolute terms — August imports were 272,300 tonnes, down 65% year on year, and the January–August total was down about 60% — which is precisely why the decline is worth noting: even a genuinely tight supply could not hold the price against collapsing demand. The sulfur market's own trend read flipped to “rebound” with a bearish tilt. The watch item is whether sulfur and phosphate rock can find a floor, because until they do, monoammonium and diammonium phosphate have no cost support and the whole chain keeps drifting. Ammonium sulfate fell 0.79% to CNY 1,250/ton, with Hualu Hengsheng cutting its caprolactam-grade quote by CNY 10/ton to CNY 1,240/ton, and Potassium chloride slipped 1.01% to CNY 3,250/ton with 4.41 million tonnes of port inventory pressing on the market — price can neither fall far nor rise, and buyers are advised to buy as needed rather than pre-stock.

Phenol produced the segment's best gain, up 1.60% to CNY 9,550/ton from CNY 9,400/ton, and the benchmark moved in lockstep from CNY 9,400.00 to CNY 9,550.00. This is a genuine, well-supported move: phenol is now 5.03% above its month-start level of CNY 8,950/ton and 46.55% higher year on year, though the 生意社 annual position flags it as “mid-to-high” and carrying a two-year over-performance warning. The strength is coming from the aromatic chain rather than from phenol's own demand: benzene held at CNY 10,567.67/ton, up 90.68% year on year, and the same board showed cyclohexane up 4.65%, styrene up 3.31% and cyclohexanone up 0.89%, so the whole benzene derivative complex was bid. Note the contrast with phenol's sister product: Acetone fell 1.31% to CNY 8,500/ton, and the two are co-produced, so this is a clean relative-value move within the cumene oxidation unit rather than a uniform chain advance. Acetone remains 104.00% above its year-earlier level and sits in the “high” annual band, so the decline is a normalisation from a very elevated base. calcium carbide rose 1.57% to CNY 2,580/ton, and the benchmark confirms it exactly, up 1.57% on the same session — a reversal after a period of weakness and one that matters because calcium carbide is the cost floor for carbide-route PVC. Formaldehyde eased 0.95% to CNY 1,885/ton, its third consecutive decline, and Shandong Lianyi cut its price by CNY 40/ton to CNY 1,850/ton ex-works cash; the sequence of producer markdowns confirms that the methanol-cost rally of September and early October has fully unwound. Acetic acid fell 1.03% to CNY 4,810/ton and the producer actions behind it are unusually clear: Hualu Hengsheng cut by CNY 50/ton to CNY 4,800/ton, Zhejiang prices fell CNY 75/ton to CNY 4,725/ton, Shandong to CNY 4,660/ton and South China to CNY 4,700/ton, all attributed to falling methanol and weakening downstream buying. The acetic acid chain board showed zero gainers and five decliners, with PTA down 2.35% and ethyl acetate down 0.78%. Acetone, Methanol and Ethylene glycol all drifted lower, with glycol unchanged on the month at CNY 5,966.67/ton on the benchmark and Shanxi Lu'an holding its polyester-grade auction reserve at CNY 5,680/ton for delivery at Shouyang.

Cobalt and Nickel both fell again and together they show the non-ferrous complex turning from leader to laggard. Cobalt lost 1.36% to CNY 254,200/ton, a fourth consecutive decline, with the Shanghai metal quote down CNY 4,500 to a CNY 254,000/ton midpoint and cobalt oxide described as thinly traded on limited downstream buying. Nickel fell 1.34% to CNY 119,083/ton, giving back most of Tuesday's gain, and the underlying market remains split: refined nickel spot is firmer than the futures curve while nickel sulphate and nickel chloride continue to fall. The broader signal is clearer than either individual product: copper was down 0.94%, tin down 3.78%, antimony down 4.00%, silver down 4.93% and aluminium down 1.50% on the same session, so this is a general industrial-metals retreat rather than a product-specific story. Only lead held, up 0.87%. For chemical buyers the practical implication is that metal-input costs are easing across the board, which removes one source of upward pressure on catalysts, pigments and metal-based specialties. Among the unchanged lines, Caustic Soda at CNY 631/ton (Shandong chlor-alkali margins described as adequate on firm liquid chlorine), boric acid at CNY 11,600/ton, Borax at CNY 6,740/ton, Phosphoric Acid at CNY 8,400/ton, Sodium bicarbonate at CNY 1,207.50/ton, Titanium dioxide at CNY 14,260/ton, Urea at CNY 1,735/ton, propylene at CNY 10,701/ton, PX at CNY 10,500/ton, Styrene at CNY 10,880/ton and Magnesium sulfate at CNY 1,000/ton.

The overall read for Basic Chemicals is that the correction has moved from the products that rallied on temporary bottlenecks to the products that depend on end-user demand — and that is a materially more serious development. Methanol's squeeze, glycol's logistics premium and lithium's forward-market repricing were all identifiable and finite. A fertiliser chain that cannot find buyers ahead of winter stocking is a demand problem, and it has now taken out three of the four worst declines on the board. The counterweight is that two genuine green shoots appeared: phenol rose on real aromatic-chain strength, and calcium carbide firmed, which is the first positive cost signal for carbide-route PVC in a fortnight. Buyers should treat the sulphur and phosphate complex as the weakest part of the book and hold off, watch whether carbide's gain holds before assuming PVC costs have bottomed, and note that the metals complex is now correcting broadly — which is disinflationary for metal-linked specialties.

Fine chemicals tracked 17 products and this was the quietest segment of the session by a wide margin — only 2 lines moved, both lower. Melamine eased 0.40% to CNY 6,275/ton and Sodium metabisulfite slipped 0.18% to CNY 3,893/ton. The other fifteen products did not move at all: Benzyl alcohol, Citric acid, dimethyl carbonate, Dimethyl sulfoxide, Ferric chloride, glycolic acid, Hydroquinone, Lactic acid, Oleic acid, Potassium permanganate, sodium acetate, Sodium hypochlorite, Water softener salt, Xanthan gum and Melatonin were all unchanged. Note that the four artefact-prone lines that distorted this segment on Tuesday and Wednesday — silver iodide, tetrahydrofuran, potassium sorbate and castor oil — have all dropped out of the basket, which is why this edition shows no anomalies at all.

Melamine eased 0.40% to CNY 6,275/ton and the benchmark confirms it exactly at CNY 6,300.00 falling to CNY 6,275.00. The move is small but it is directionally consistent with everything else in the nitrogen and coal-chemical complex: melamine is made from urea, urea has been pinned at CNY 1,735/ton with industry operating rates at historic highs and producer inventories at 1.4827 million tonnes, and the wider coal-chemical chain was weak on the day with coke down 5.93% and liquid ammonia down 6.29%. Melamine remains 13.83% above its year-earlier level, so this is a modest give-back rather than a break. Sodium metabisulfite slipped 0.18% to CNY 3,893/ton, and here the link is direct: sodium metabisulfite is a downstream sulfur derivative, and with sulfur falling 6.95% and sulfuric acid 7.15% on the same session, the feedstock cost behind this product is collapsing. The fact that the finished product moved only 0.18% while its raw material fell nearly 7% is the normal lag in specialty contract pricing, and it suggests downward pressure on metabisulfite prices will persist for several more sessions before the sulfur move is fully absorbed.

The practical message for fine-chemicals buyers is straightforward: the specialty book is dormant and there is nothing to act on urgently, but one product deserves attention on the buy side. With fifteen of seventeen lines frozen, there is no momentum anywhere in the segment. The exception is Sodium metabisulfite, where the collapse in sulfur and sulfuric acid has not yet been passed through to the finished product — buyers with first-quarter requirements should expect to be able to negotiate lower and should not accept current levels without testing the market. The other item to note is dimethyl carbonate, unchanged today at CNY 6,033/ton but sitting downstream of methanol, which has now stabilised at CNY 3,990/ton; with methanol 14.33% lower on the week, the case for further weakness in DMC has weakened, and buyers who were waiting for a deeper markdown should reassess. Everything else is a hold.

Energy, Rubber, Plastic and other chemicals tracked 10 products, of which 5 moved — 2 higher and 3 lower. WTI Crude Oil gained 1.06% to USD 95/barrel and ABS edged up 0.05% to CNY 12,073/ton, while HDPE fell 1.01% to CNY 11,125/ton, Asphalt eased 0.65% to CNY 6,143/ton and Silica slipped 0.52% to CNY 6,367/ton. Carbon at CNY 12,500/ton, Carbon Black at CNY 10,807/ton, Gasoline at CNY 10,002/ton, EAA at CNY 57,800/ton and POE at CNY 16,500/ton were unchanged, with EAA and POE returning to coverage after absences.

WTI Crude Oil rose 1.06% to USD 95/barrel in the tracked basket, and the physical settlement confirms the level exactly: November WTI settled up 1.01% at USD 95.09 a barrel, a fresh high for the move. For the first time in a week the upside case is doing the work on its own, without needing Brent to disagree: the day brought a further intensification of Iranian attacks on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which is now described as threatening the recent recovery in Persian Gulf exports, alongside further Saudi interception of Houthi missiles and drones and a renewed fall in Russian crude exports as a key Black Sea port slowed operations on security concerns. Crude is now up 61.99% year on year. The countervailing pressure remains the Russian diesel agreement, which traders continue to discount heavily — the accompanying energy ceasefire surprised both Moscow and Kyiv, and President Trump himself acknowledged that neither side had actually committed to halting strikes on the other's energy infrastructure. The practical read for the chemical chain is that energy costs are rising while chemical prices are falling, which is the worst possible combination for intermediate producers and explains why formaldehyde, acetic acid and melamine are all being marked down at the same time that their feedstock or energy cost is rising.

The polymer complex finally turned, and PVC is the clearest reversal. Having jumped 2.16% on Wednesday, the PVC benchmark gave back 1.25% to CNY 4,807/ton on Thursday, and the reason is exactly the cost argument flagged in yesterday's report: the support underneath carbide-route PVC was weakening, not strengthening. Semi-coke and calcium carbide had fallen after the holiday, cutting the external carbide-route balanced cost to CNY 5,250/ton and reducing producer losses, and the market wasted little time in repricing. The mixed picture is now a genuinely two-sided one: calcium carbide itself rose 1.57% on Thursday, which offers some cost relief for producers, but demand remains poor — downstream product makers are still buying on a “buy the dip, not the rally” basis and export economics are thin with high freight rates offsetting China's price advantage. Weekly inventory showed the first seasonal build, with all-channel industrial stock at 1.194 million tonnes, up 89,000 tonnes over the holiday and back to early-September levels. HDPE fell 1.01% to CNY 11,125/ton, breaking a run of gains, though it remains 4.95% higher on the week; the wider polyolefin board was mixed with LLDPE down 0.80% to CNY 9,908.33/ton, PP raffia up 0.88% to CNY 10,750/ton and PS up 0.56%. ABS held essentially flat, up 0.05% to CNY 12,073/ton, extending a 4.04% weekly advance. The rubber side was markedly weaker, with natural rubber down 2.79% to CNY 19,133.33/ton, butadiene rubber down 2.56% and styrene-butadiene rubber down 2.25%, and Silica — the rubber-grade reinforcing filler — slipped 0.52% to CNY 6,367/ton, tracking its main downstream lower even as the wider market held.

Overall, the Energy, Rubber, Plastic and other chemicals segment has lost the constructive tone it held on Wednesday. The polymer advance that ran for over a week has now stalled or reversed in three of its four leading grades, and the PVC reversal is the most instructive because it was predictable: a rally built on a feedstock that was itself falling was never going to hold, and Wednesday's report flagged precisely that risk. Crude is the one genuinely firm part of the segment, and it is firm for geopolitical rather than demand reasons. The near-term risk is now skewed negative for polymers: carbide costs have eased, October maintenance is finite, ethylene-route units will eventually restart, and demand is not improving. For buyers, the sensible posture has flipped from securing volumes to waiting: the grades that rallied on producer discipline are now giving ground, and the products whose only support was a rising feedstock are exposed. Watch whether calcium carbide's fresh gain changes that arithmetic in the coming sessions — if it does not, further downside in PVC is the path of least resistance.