Chemical Prices Today (October 21, 2026): Daily Market Trends & Price Changes

Daily Chemical Market Price Overview — October 21, 2026

The two biggest prints of the day were corrections, not markets. 24 of 101 tracked products moved — 11 higher against 13 lower, a clear breadth improvement from yesterday’s 5-up/24-down washout — while 77 lines froze. But the head of the raw ranking belongs to neither: mineral oil printed -43.4% as its stale CNY 72,000 quote, flagged in the last two editions, finally reverted to a CNY 40,750 level the rest of the market has been quoting all along, and sulfur’s -4.94% daily print was computed against a revised-back base of CNY 6,077 rather than the CNY 5,814 published yesterday (against that print the day moved only -0.64%). Stripped of both, the real board is this: nickel +2.61% and PTMEG +2.63% lead the genuine gains, propylene -2.54% is the deepest authentic markdown, and lithium carbonate -1.98% to CNY 99,000/ton broke the round floor one session after this column asked whether it would hold. The basket itself also turned over again: it shrank to 101 lines with four additions (hydrogen peroxide, metronidazole, quartz/silica sol, sulfur hexafluoride) and seven exits, and the departures of melamine and retinol removed two of yesterday’s most interesting small prints from coverage. An honest first read: with 77 quotes frozen and the biggest movers being data resets, the market spent the day digesting its own October rather than discovering November.

Three forces shaped the day. First, the data itself got repriced: mineral oil’s reversion confirms the two-edition warning about its +35.21% weekly clock — which is still on the board unchanged and must still be ignored — while sulfur’s base replay is a reminder that the collapse is real at the level (5,777, weekly -13.36%) even when the daily print double-counts it. Second, supply-side coordination reached battery metals: nickel’s third consecutive gain came on credible reporting that Tsingshan, GEM, Lygend and Huayou are discussing ~30% output cuts at Indonesian HPAL plants, the first serious supply response to a cost curve that has been negative on every production route — while PVC kept its maintenance-driven climb and PTMEG printed its first genuine up-move once its October base artefact settled. Third, the oil premium went two-way at the handle: WTI took a third consecutive loss (-1.01% to USD 98) after an intraday rally of USD 2 collapsed on Kremlin signals that Ukraine peace talks could resume in November, a 3.06-million-barrel EIA crude draw offset by an unexpected 1.68-million-barrel distillate build — and the chemical board, for the third straight session, refused to follow the barrel either way: benzene, phenol and aniline turned up on domestic cost-push even as crude fell again.

Nickel prices ↑ 2.61%

Nickel rose 2.61% to CNY 122,617/ton from CNY 119,500/ton — a third consecutive gain and by far the largest of the three, the biggest genuine advance on the board. The trigger was reported, not hoped for: Bloomberg and local exchanges confirm that executives from Tsingshan, GEM, Lygend and Zhejiang Huayou are discussing coordinated cuts of roughly 30% at their Indonesian HPAL operations, the mixed-hydroxide-precipitate lines that feed battery-grade nickel sulfate. Shanghai nickel settled +3.05% at CNY 121,090, back above the 120,000 handle, while LME three-month exceeded USD 16,000 for the first time since its nine-month low last Thursday — a fourth up session. The structural argument is the cost curve: October surveys put every Chinese refining route in loss — bought-in nickel sulfate at minus 15,353 to minus 16,418 yuan, high-matte nickel at minus 8,518 to minus 12,352, integrated MHP worst at minus 24,200 to minus 28,668 — while Indonesia’s 2026 RKAB mining quota has been cut from ~379 million to 260–270 million tonnes and Huayou’s Huafu project has run half-down since May. The sulphur link cuts both ways: HPAL economics were crushed in the first half by a sulphuric-acid cost spike (sulphur peaked near USD 1,275/ton versus USD 550 in January) — and the metal whose feedstock is now collapsing is exactly why cuts are suddenly credible. The caution is procedural: an identical August talking-points meeting ended without agreement, and the tracked clocks say repair, not recovery — weekly +1.59%, monthly still 4.55% lower. This is the supply curve responding to losses, the first such signal anywhere in the battery complex; it is not demand turning.

Price rose 2.61% today — a third straight gain and the largest genuine advance on the board, on reported ~30% HPAL cut talks among Tsingshan, GEM, Lygend and Huayou in Indonesia. Every nickel route is cash-negative and the 2026 ore quota is down ~30%, so the supply response is credible — but August’s identical negotiation failed, and the monthly clock is still 4.55% lower. Cost-curve repair, not a demand turn.

Lithium carbonate prices ↓ -1.98%

Lithium carbonate fell 1.98% to CNY 99,000/ton from CNY 101,000/ton — the tracked line’s lowest print of the window and the answer to the question this column posed a session ago: whether spot would hold above the round number on an actual close. It did not. The derivatives did the damage: the Guangzhou futures 2701 contract opened up over 101,100, sprinted to 102,300 and then collapsed into a 95,040 close, down 5.45% with a 94,960 intraday low — reopening a ~4,000-yuan discount to spot and re-decimating the carry trade. The fundamental dossier is split precisely down the middle. The bear side: Jianxiawo’s environmental review re-entered the approval queue, Zimbabwean shipments resumed, October spodumene arrivals are ample, spodumene concentrate has been marked down 11.9% in the latest survey, and October cathode/battery schedules, while still growing month-on-month (LFP +4%, batteries +6% to ~320 GWh), are landing under the ramp traders paid for. The bull side is almost entirely physical: social stocks fell another 5,145 tonnes to 134,372, futures warrants are down to 23,172 and still draining, and CATL published an unusually direct rebuttal of the 2027 demand scare — EV penetration and per-vehicle content rising, overseas storage accelerating. The two solid-state line announcements the same week (Dalian 0.5 GW, Xingtai semi-solid) are 2027+ timelines with zero current offtake. With CITIC’s institutional Q4 band at 100,000–150,000 already breached from underneath, the practical read inverts: it is no longer 99,000 to defend but the 95,000 futures print to watch — if the spot-futures gap closes upward, this line gets one more leg; if warrants keep draining and Q4 schedules hold, CNY 99,000 was the overshoot. Weekly -4.33%, monthly -16.96%.

Price dropped 1.98% today — the round floor this edition asked the market to defend failed at CNY 99,000 while the 2701 futures closed 95,040. The split is real: inventories -5,145 t/week and warrants still draining against Jianxiawo’s return to the approval queue. Stage buys inside the 95,000–99,000 gap; do not chase the round-number narrative in either direction.

Sulfur prices ↓ -4.94%

Sulfur printed -4.94% to CNY 5,777/ton — but the honest reading requires the revision note first: the table’s October 20 cell reverted to 6,077 (the October 19 value), so the daily percentage replays most of a markdown that was already published at 5,814. Against that print the session moved -0.64%. The level, not the percentage, is the story: the weekly clock remains double-digit negative (-13.36%), the monthly gap widened to -10.97%, and the physical market on the ground was the worst day of the unwind — import granular transactions at the ports broke to 5,550–5,800 with one measure showing the largest single-day port decline of the slide, Zhenjiang solid cargo 11.6% below its October 9 reference, and East China liquid falling to the 4,800–4,900s. Why: port inventories rebuilt from a ~750,000-tonne low to 1.12 million tonnes as stranded Gulf cargoes finally discharged; Middle East October officials reset lower (Qatar USD 835, Kuwait USD 820, ADNOC USD 890) with CFR China quoted at 860–880 against Vancouver-at-Brazil still at 950; and the policy frame — directed supply guarantees for the three majors, export restrictions on sulphuric acid — caps the demand recovery: phosphate fertilizer runs sit in the low 40s-percent range with producers theoretically losing over CNY 1,000 a tonne, so the response to cheaper feedstock has been to stop buying, not buy more. The first counter-trend detail of the week appeared late: Shandong refinery liquid auctions rose to 5,240–5,440 on a single-session basis, the first sign of tentative restocking after the overshoot. Downstream, the pass-through keeps its lag-and-catch pattern: sodium metabisulfite took a third consecutive markdown (-1.56% to CNY 3,783, all three clocks now negative) while sulfuric acid froze a fourth session at CNY 1,558 with its monthly gap widening to -7.82%.

Price dropped 4.94% on the sheet — but read it as a base revision: against yesterday’s published 5,814 the day moved only -0.64%. The collapse is nonetheless live at the level: ports restocked to 1.12 Mt from a 0.75 Mt low, fertilizer runs in the low 40s%, and Middle East contracts settled $45–70 lower. Metabisulfite’s third straight cut and acid’s widening -7.82% monthly gap say the chain repricing continues until CFR China stops printing new lows.

The above pricing data is compiled from multiple market channels including domestic ex-works quotations, distributor transaction references, port prices, and mainstream spot market assessments. Data was updated on October 21, 2026, based on the latest available trading activity and real-time market feedback collected by GuideTrends analysts and industry participants.

All prices are for reference purposes only and may vary depending on region, transaction volume, specification, and contract terms.

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