Chemical Prices Today (October 27, 2026): Daily Market Trends & Price Changes

Basic Chemicals: 264 lines, 69 moved (34 up / 35 down), 195 frozen. The shelf split evenly for the first time this window, and the genuine board is a squeeze tape: up liquid argon +16.67%, diethylene glycol +7.94% (third straight gain, weekly +11.86% against a monthly clock still at -26.75% — the deepest hole the complex has climbed out of), dichloromethane +2.53% (third consecutive advance, monthly +25.52%), methanol +1.99% (weekly +1.78%, monthly +9.12% — the C1 floor firming even as its own futures leg moved differently), phenol +1.41%, polystyrene +4.14%, propylene oxide +3.54%, 1,3-butadiene +3.23%, lithium carbonate +3.06%. Down: sodium hypochlorite -4.52%, caustic soda -2.55% (first chlor-alkali markdown of the window), propylene -1.82%, decahydronaphthalene -13.21% (weekly clock same-sign but only -1.39% — a one-day repricing into a nearly flat week), hydrochloric acid -1.62%, cobalt -0.77%, nickel -0.79%, sulfur -0.89% to CNY 5,564/ton (weekly -4.08%, monthly -15.04% — another leg down since the mid-month Dongming raise). Corrections on this shelf today: 4-fluorophenol -99.80%, cupric carbonate basic +59.29% (its published level has swung 44,000 to 37,667 to 60,000 across three files), mineral oil -27.72% re-entering on its own rewritten base, anthracite +11.11% swinging back to 1,750 for the third session running.

The phenol-acetone complex blinked first at the cash window, and the sheet is one day behind. Acetone slipped -0.56% to CNY 8,900/ton and phenol rose only +1.41% to CNY 9,938/ton, and both prints lag the reversal the third-party tape recorded Tuesday: Longzhong's 14:00 assessment put Jiangsu acetone at CNY 8,775 (-225, -2.50%) and East-China phenol at 9,850 (-25), the first down-quotes after the October maintenance wave took utilization to 72% and stripped roughly 48,200 tons from the month. This column priced the restart calendar as the fuse on Monday; it is now burning: the weekly ranking still shows acetone Jiangsu +6.54% and phenol East China +6.05%, but the daily direction turned. Bisphenol A froze for a still frame at CNY 11,020/ton (weekly +1.37%) against East-China cash at 11,250 (+150) — the sheet's gap to the cash market has widened back to CNY 230/ton, and the complex's economics remain the tell: BPA industry utilization 73%, margin still negative at roughly CNY -1,242/ton, improved from Monday's -1,474 only because crude-based inputs eased. Diethylene glycol +7.94% to CNY 8,077/ton is the third leg of a quiet squeeze — the Zhangjiagang tape added CNY 845 (+12.11%) in the week, the top industrial-chemicals gainer on Longzhong's board — and unlike acetone its monthly clock (-26.75%) says this is still recovery, not a new regime.

The chlorinated shelf held its rally line while the chlor-alkali shelf printed its first genuine markdown of the autumn. Dichloromethane +2.53% to CNY 3,045/ton completed a third consecutive weekly-confirmed advance (monthly +25.52%) against a re-locked feed, and chloroform sat frozen for an eighth still frame at CNY 2,600/ton carrying its +10.89% month; 1,3-dichlorobenzene crept +1.38% to CNY 15,333/ton while its weekly clock still reads -15.45% — the agro-aromatic is crawling out of the hole its October 23 print opened, and the direction disagrees with the tape, so it is filed, not followed. The chlor-alkali line is where the macro met the sheet: caustic soda fell -2.55% to CNY 611/ton and sodium hypochlorite -4.52% to CNY 528/ton, against a futures board that dropped the main contract more than 4% on October 27 (Xinhua Finance), Shandong 32%-liquid prices averaging CNY 564 (-10) with the Lubei corridor down 15, and — the demand-side fact — the major alumina buyer cutting its caustic procurement price by CNY 10/ton to 535 ex-works effective October 27 while its own alumina ex-works quotes slipped CNY 5 across regions (Mysteel/Shengyishe). Chlor-alkali producers' cash flow turned negative at roughly CNY -9/ton; liquid chlorine, the co-product hedge, rose +150 to 450 ex-works in Shandong — the complex is repricing which of its two outputs pays for the plant. Sodium hydroxide (the tracked composite) froze at CNY 2,567/ton for a second session: the sheet has not caught the market yet.

The coal-and-acid shelf went quiet on the surface and structural underneath. Anthracite printed +11.11% to CNY 1,750/ton — the third session of the 1,750 / 1,575 / 1,750 oscillation, a swing artefact excluded from the confirmed board and noted here only because it is the file's loudest number that is not a market fact. Coking coal held CNY 2,244/ton (weekly +0.76%, monthly -6.37%), thermal coal slipped -0.38% to CNY 1,042/ton, coke froze for a fifth still frame at CNY 2,125/ton, and calcium carbide froze at CNY 2,520/ton — meaning the PVC markdown below it landed on an unchanged feed cost, a resin-side give-back rather than a coal-side one. The sulphur-acid complex continued its slow bleed with genuine clocks: sulfur -0.89% to CNY 5,564/ton (weekly -4.08%, monthly -15.04% — a seventh consecutive leg down since the mid-month Dongming raise), sulfuric acid frozen for a second session at CNY 1,540/ton (monthly -9.05%), hydrochloric acid -1.62% to CNY 182/ton. The nitrogen shelf stayed inert: urea -0.29% to CNY 1,730/ton, melamine frozen at 6,125, ammonium sulfate +0.57% to CNY 1,237/ton. Formic acid held a still frame at CNY 2,300/ton with a weekly clock that has turned positive (+5.22%) after the October supply event — the markdown has been digested and the line is pricing its Q4 floor now.

The metals-and-battery shelf printed the session's first spot-futures handshake. Lithium carbonate +3.06% to CNY 101,000/ton, lithium hydroxide +1.27% to CNY 80,000/ton: for a week the sheet and the Guangzhou board had been telling opposite stories — October 26 was the futures leg's -10.48% crash-then-rebound while the tracked line sat frozen at 98,000 — and Tuesday they converged in the same direction. The external tape is precise: GF2701 closed +3.77% at CNY 98,500/ton touching 100,000 intraday, Mysteel's MMLC battery-grade early assessment printed 100,750 (+1,750), the Changjiang average 100,000 (+1,500), and the Shengyishe benchmark 101,000 — the tracked composite's number to the yuan. The drivers are policy at both ends: seven ministries published the 15th Five-Year plan for the new battery industry (2030 demand endorsement), Jianxiawo's mine restart entered environmental-impact public display (the forward loosening that caps every rally), September domestic carbonate output rose 7.7% month-on-month, and November cathode scheduling is being revised down — which is why every rebound on this board is being described by every Chinese desk as a pulse, not a trend (monthly clock on this very line: -19.30%). Nickel -0.79% to CNY 119,850/ton extended the post-rally fade (monthly -4.50%), cobalt -0.77% to CNY 230,500/ton (monthly -12.02%), nickel sulfate +1.50% to CNY 31,633/ton, lithium-iron-phosphate precursor frozen at 48,000 (monthly -8.16%) — the battery shelf is rallying on the salt end and refusing on the cathode end, the same internal split the aromatics showed.

Fine Chemicals: 1,174 lines, 167 moved (81 up / 86 down). The shelf's raw ranking is still correction-dominated: of its prints above ten percent, seventeen survive the weekly-clock and base-rewrite tests today (the loudest failures: 2,3-dihydro-2,2-dimethyl-7-benzofuranol +272.00%, methylcyclopentadiene dimer +155.88%, N-phenylmaleimide +123.61%, vinylmagnesium chloride +113.46%, 4-fluorophenol -99.80%, ethanethiol -51.82%, diethanolisopropanolamine +52.72%). The confirmed board reads: up zinc(II) acetylacetonate +33.33% (in neither of the two prior files — a new-entry line whose base is the file's own opening quote, disclosed before it is believed), 3-chloro-1,2-propanediol +24.58%, benzalacetone +23.31% (also re-entered, its own October 23 cell was CNY 19,900), sebacic acid +20.97%, 2-ethoxyethyl ether +12.42% (second leg of the glycol-ether squeeze), 4-methoxyphenol +10.75%, teflubenzuron +11.11%, 2,4-dinitrochlorobenzene +8.00%, castor oil +8.00%, potassium peroxymonosulfate +7.50%; down ammonium acetate -20.88%, 2,6-di-tert-butylphenol -20.00%, trimethyl borate -14.29% (a full round trip of Monday's +11.36%), pyromellitic acid -13.21%, 1-bromopropane -10.71%, 2-methylbutanal -9.40%, 4-aminophenol -8.08% completing a 17,950/16,500/17,950/16,500 swing back to the pre-Monday level (filed as the oscillation class, not ranked).

The castor chain closed ranks — acid, ester and oil up on the same board. After Monday's -12.81% (card three), sebacic acid +20.97% to CNY 33,750/ton printed above its October 23 print for the first time in the tracked window; the confirmation came from its own downstream, dioctyl decanedioate +11.11% to CNY 17,500/ton (weekly +4.59%) on the plastics shelf, and from the raw material, castor oil +8.00% to CNY 16,200/ton on its return to the feed (weekly +4.00%). The dated Indian frame matters for the top: NCDEX Kandla castor oil set an all-time high of INR 1,743.8 per 10 kg on October 19 and Deesa seed an all-time 8,763.45/quintal on October 23 — both eased by October 27 (1,698 and 8,591), which means the acid is now bidding a sixteen-percent premium over the October 23 print against a feed benchmark that has peaked and started back. A bio-chain carrying inventory premium at the factory gate with a falling exchange tape is a squeeze with an expiry date; what the chain's winter-nucleating-plasticizer demand (the ester's own end-market) does in November decides whether the acid gets to extend. Related shelf: sebacoyl-adjacent dodecanedioic family quiet, hexadecanedioic frozen — the diacid complex's signal was this line and its ester only.

The solvent-and-ether shelf squeezed its derivative while its head stayed quoted flat; the epoxy-diluent shelf split by molecule. 2-Ethoxyethyl ether +12.42% to CNY 29,633/ton (weekly +6.00%) is the glycol-ether line's second gain in three sessions, and it sits on a base that was restated up over the weekend (Monday's file re-marked its October 25 cell from 14,033 to 14,167 for the diglyme pair and from 11,600 to 12,300 for DEGBE) — both of those restated lines then printed restorations today ( diglyme -0.95% to 14,033, DEGBE -5.69% to 11,600: back on Monday's published level, trading the gap the rewrite opened, filed). The diluent shelf's genuine markdowns cluster in one direction: ethylene glycol diglycidyl ether -12.38%, 1,6-hexanediol diglycidyl ether -8.65%, cashew-nutshell glycidyl ethers -8.90% — three epoxy reactives falling 9 to 12% against mildly negative weekly clocks while the resin itself (E-51 15,000–15,300, +100 on the week) refuses to fall; diluent-versus-resin divergence at 44.5% ECH utilization is the same chain-head/chain-tail mismatch card one documented, pointed the other way. Pyrvinium pamoate +3.26% and 3-hydroxypropionitrile +5.19% (weekly +5.63%) hold the fine-nitrile floor.

The pharmaceutical-and-agro aromatic complex: overshoots, give-backs and one clean squeeze. 4-Methoxyphenol +10.75% to CNY 65,500/ton does not merely restore Monday's -13.03% give-back — it lands ten percent above the October 23 base (59,180) and prints a fresh tracked window high for the developer intermediate, the third overshoot-reversal pattern this column has logged since Monday (sebacic above, pivalic's bounce below on a contradictory clock). The antioxidant-intermediate shelf printed its own way: 2,6-di-tert-butylphenol -20.00% to CNY 12/kg (weekly -12.50%) — the OBPA intermediate continuing a two-week fade against a stable BHT-family price, and trimethyl borate -14.29% to CNY 10,500/ton erasing Monday's +11.36% in one session — the borate ester's round trip filed as a single squeeze that its weekly clock (-9.77%) says was never a trend. Ammonium acetate -20.88% to CNY 3,600/ton (weekly -10.44%, monthly only +1.35%) is the lab-solvent reset: a twenty-percent day that the month-level clock says round-trips within one quarter — the profile of a stock-allocation move, not a demand signal. Teflubenzuron +11.11% to CNY 50,000/ton (weekly +2.15%) and 2,4-dinitrochlorobenzene +8.00% to CNY 13,500/ton (weekly +1.56%) hold the agro-intermediate floor on supply-side bids. 4-Aminophenol -8.08% to CNY 16,500/ton lands exactly on the level Monday rose from (16,500 to 17,950 to 16,500 across three files) — the analgesic intermediate has now oscillated between two fixed quotes twice running; the print is disclosed and excluded from the confirmed board as the swing class the column flags for foundry sand and anthracite.

Frozen drift, library edition, round two. With the feed broadened to 1,521 lines the non-market shelf made itself legible again: 50 frozen lines carry weekly clocks of five percent or worse and 14 carry monthly clocks of eight percent or worse while printing zero on the day. The flags this session: aniline frozen for a fifth still frame at CNY 16,600/ton on a +14.24% month, 1,4-butanediol frozen at 10,338 (monthly +15.03%), merchant THF frozen at 12,650 while the polymer-grade line returned to the feed and printed -12.82% to CNY 17,000/ton against a weekly clock of +1.52% — the direction the week disagrees with, and the October 23 edition's own cell for it was 21,750: a decline through a restated base, disclosed, not ranked, MIBK frozen at 13,567 (weekly +3.15%), cyclohexanone 11,300 and cyclohexane 7,500 both frozen on +7-months, ethylene oxide frozen for a third session at 9,700 (monthly +7.93%) while its glycol derivatives (DEG +7.94%, EO-family ethers mixed) repriced around it, polyethyleneimine carrying a -20.45% month behind a frozen day. The polymer-monomer spread watch: polycarbonate-adjacent and PMMA-family lines frozen while the epoxy chain and the castor chain both bid — the library is not one market, and this week the frozen shelf is where the un-ratified premiums are hiding.

Energy, Rubber, Plastics and Other: 83 lines, 31 moved (18 up / 13 down), 52 frozen. The barrel shelf kept its basis while the paper fell — WTI -1.92% to USD 102 and Brent -0.85% to USD 116 on the sheet against Tuesday settlements of USD 99.90 and 113.88, the sheet still pricing the escalation the diplomacy is currently granting back. Liquefied natural gas +2.79% to CNY 7,520/ton (weekly +8.90%) is the shelf's genuine gainer with a documented grid story behind it; asphalt +0.35% (weekly +5.30%) and kerosene +1.18% held. The alkane trio heptadecane / hexadecane -9.55% and octadecane -10.00% all landing on exactly CNY 18,000/ton against zero weekly clocks is a quote standardization, filed. Plastics printed mixed-to-soft: PVC resin SG-5 -2.23% to CNY 5,080/ton (Monday's +3.07% give-back, the carbide feed unchanged at 2,520), LLDPE +0.74%, LDPE +0.53%, HDPE +0.14% (third slowing leg), ABS +3.94% to CNY 13,000/ton confirmed against the documented loss-plus-maintenance story, EPS -1.65%, PA6 +1.33%, DINP +3.03%. Rubber's two prints were down: natural rubber -2.10% (weekly -0.40%) and SBR -0.15% — the first tyre-chain markdown of the window with SBR easing -0.15% and polybutadiene frozen at CNY 16,690/ton — against butadiene's +3.23% feed bid. The corrections here: foundry sand -23.08% to 1,750 completing its third-session oscillation, and anthracite's swing logged on the coal shelf.

The barrel: diplomacy moved the paper, a missile claim moved the basis, and Europe's grid moved the gas complex. Tuesday's settlements (WTI USD 99.90 -1.83%, Brent 113.88 -1.67%) priced the Tehran contacts — Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan agreeing to continue talks, the security council chief meeting the Supreme Leader — on the same morning the Houthis claimed a ballistic missile hit the Ras Tanura refinery (550,000 bpd, fire reported and contained per maritime-security firm Vanguard, damage and loading impact unconfirmed, Riyadh's defense ministry also claimed targeted; the Saudi-led coalition said three missiles over the Eastern Province were intercepted). October is now the highest-attack month for commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz since tracking began in 2017 (Washington Institute), Egypt's parliament authorized defensive support for Riyadh (which the Houthis called a declaration of war), and UBS lifted its year-end Brent forecast to around USD 110. That is why this sheet's crude lines (102/116) sit above the settlements — a USD 2-3 basis that is the market's way of holding escalation risk while diplomacy talks. The European gas board is the bigger structural story: front-month TTF traded past EUR 97.5/MWh on Monday — its highest since December 2022, roughly +234% year-to-date — with EU storage at 74.6% (lowest same-period in over a decade, first net decline of the year) and a cold snap forecast across the continent for this weekend; French baseload power followed past EUR 200/MWh. The domestic grid shelf took the signal: liquefied natural gas +2.79% to CNY 7,520/ton on a +8.90% week, and the LPG board (CNY 7,730 futures +4.50% for a fourth straight session, import cost 7,542 to 8,138 against October Saudi CP of USD 680/730) kept printing Middle East export constraint into a low-inventory, high-PDH-utilization domestic book — while the tracked propane line froze again at CNY 6,150/ton — the merchant tape put second-half-October South-China frozen propane CIF at USD 1,092/ton (roughly CNY 8,090 landed), so the tracked handle sits a quarter under the import cost the same week. The sheet lags where the book is administered; that is repricing debt, not stability.

Plastics: a resin give-back against an unchanged feed, a confirmed ABS squeeze, and the first rubber markdown. PVC SG-5 -2.23% to CNY 5,080/ton (weekly still +3.17%) is Monday's +3.07% partially returned on the same board where the carbide feed sits frozen at CNY 2,520/ton and the industry runs at 59.8% utilization, the five-year low documented last session — supply arithmetic that does not explain a markdown and does not survive a restocking week: the resin is simply refusing its own premium at year-end price levels. ABS +3.94% to CNY 13,000/ton is the confirmed one: SCI's late-October wrap put mainstream material at CNY 12,200–13,100/ton (low end +900 against September-end), theoretical October losses at CNY 1,469/ton deepening month-on-month, PetroChina's Jilin branch in year-end turnaround, and producers committed to output curbs — a loss-running complex taking supply out, which is the precise profile of a floor that holds. Polystyrene +4.14% to CNY 12,567/ton (weekly +2.64%) continued its third leg even as styrene monomer froze at CNY 11,620/ton while the cash tape fell (-2.88% to 11,615 per Longzhong, futures -2%): the resin-over-monomer spread is widening because the styrene chain's own restart clock is now pointing down, and the PS line has not looked at either tape. Polyethylene decelerated to a third slowing leg (LLDPE +0.74% against last week's +2.31). Rubber broke direction: natural rubber -2.10% to CNY 19,000/ton, the first markdown of the window, with carbon black frozen for a third still frame at CNY 10,771/ton (weekly -0.33%) and butadiene bidding +3.23% to 13,867 — the tyre chain's raw-material split (synthetic feed up, natural rubber down) is margin compression at the mixer, and polybutadiene frozen at CNY 16,690/ton refusing to follow either way is the quiet fact inside it.

What a Tuesday of squeezes that disagree adds up to. The correction ratio this session: of 267 moving lines, 4 landed exactly on Monday's published level (restorations, filed) and 58 of the 75 largest prints failed the weekly-plus-base-plus-swing test — leaving 88 weekly-corroborated, non-restoration prints above one percent as the tradable market of a 1,521-line feed. Three housekeeping notes with market content: the weekend restatement engine went quiet ( only 6 cells re-marked against Monday's file, versus 86 into Monday — the books stabilized and today's prints can be read as market, which is precisely when the file's swing artefacts become visible: anthracite 1,750/1,575/1,750, foundry sand's mirror, pivalic acid bouncing +7.07% against a -7.72% weekly clock); 27 of Monday's lines left the feed entirely (dibasic ester, TDI, HDI, potassium permanganate, D60, vinyl neodecanoate and the methacrylate salts among them) while 820 lines re-entered or joined, and mineral oil returned to print -27.72% on a base the file has re-marked repeatedly for ten days (CNY 72,000 on October 23, 56,375 as yesterday, 40,750 today) — tracked-line membership is now itself a data event and this column will keep auditing it file by file. What survives the noise is a session of squeezes that disagree with their own chains: a derivative out-bidding a frozen chain head (3-MCPD vs ECH), an acid bidding above a feed that has peaked (sebacic vs the Kandla tape), a resin refusing its five-year-low-supply premium (PVC), a sheet holding crude basis above settlements that diplomacy just marked down, and a European gas curve at four-year highs that every winter-cost line in this library will eventually have to price. The next fuses worth pricing are dated and visible: the acetone restart calendar just burned its first down-print at the cash window (8,775, -2.50%), and the sebacic premium has an exchange tape peaking against it. When a squeeze's own feed starts saying no, the queue to test it forms fast.