Chemical Prices Today (October 28, 2026): Daily Market Trends & Price Changes

Basic Chemicals: 266 lines, 45 moved (28 up / 17 down), 221 frozen; 13 genuine movers above one percent. The genuine board is narrow and directional: up liquid argon +20.00% (card one), tetradecane +11.67% (card two, its shelf), dichloromethane +3.28% to CNY 3,145/ton (fourth consecutive advance; the domestic merchant tape printed the identical 3,145 with a year-on-year clock of +85.55%), 1,3-butadiene +3.12% to CNY 14,300/ton (again matching the merchant board to the yuan, +80.25% year-on-year), propylene +1.18% to CNY 10,928/ton, chloroform +1.27% to CNY 2,633/ton (first move after an eight-file still frame at 2,600, monthly +11.06%), formaldehyde +1.55%, terephthalic acid +0.97%. Down: cobalt -3.77%, methanol -2.27% to CNY 4,000/ton, lithium carbonate -2.97%, styrene monomer -2.15% to CNY 11,370/ton (the merchant tape identical, -2.15%), hydrogen peroxide -3.19% to CNY 697/ton, 1-propanol -1.32%, caustic soda -1.31%. Corrections and bands filed, not ranked: pyrrhotite +14.29% (fourth session of the 350/400 flip), 3-nitrobenzoic acid -20.29% and tris(2-chloropropyl) phosphate +14.29% both snapping back to their October 26 quotes, diethylene glycol -19.77% falling through an overnight base rewrite (8,077 to 10,038) against a +22.57% weekly clock, and anthracite -10.00% returning to 1,575 inside its fourth-session band. Mineral oil printed nothing again — still 40,750 with the weekly clock now at -8.46% and the month clock at -18.68%: the freeze is the confession.

The phenol-acetone complex kept conceding; the ECH chain's derivative paused mid-squeeze. Acetone fell -2.25% to CNY 8,700/ton and phenol -1.14% to CNY 9,825/ton — the sheet's second consecutive markdown pair after the cash window turned last week, so the restart arithmetic this column logged (utilization around 72%, roughly 48,200 tons stripped from October's phenol-acetone month) is now repricing on the tracked board, not only on the merchant one. Bisphenol A froze for a second still frame at CNY 11,020/ton (weekly +1.37%) while Covestro's Antwerp polycarbonate and BPA retirements and the European winter-cost file stay live from last week's reading — the sheet's BPA has stopped chasing a European supply story and a domestic demand tape in opposite directions. On the epichlorohydrin chain the head is still frozen (ECH at CNY 11,200/ton, fourth consecutive file flat; allyl chloride at CNY 6,300/ton) and the derivative that out-bid it Tuesday paused: 3-chloro-1,2-propanediol unchanged at CNY 28,000/ton, its weekly clock now +19.54% — a two-session, forty-percent squeeze that held its level today while the epoxy reactives below it mixed (allyl glycidyl ether +5.66% to CNY 28,000 recovering yesterday's markdown; diethylene glycol diglycidyl ether +3.85%). Chain heads in that complex do not negotiate; contract books do. The freeze at 28,000 is the sound of a merchant book deciding who blinks first.

The chlorinated shelf extended; the chlor-alkali shelf printed the session's most honest spread. Dichloromethane +3.28% to CNY 3,145/ton is a fourth consecutive weekly-confirmed advance (monthly +25.78%) and the tracked number matched the domestic merchant benchmark exactly, the methane-chlorination complex still repricing feedstock-plus-allowance economics into a +85% year-on-year hole. Chloroform +1.27% to CNY 2,633/ton broke eight files of 2,600. Then the pair the market is watching: the tracked resin PVC +2.36% while the alkali leg caustic soda -1.31% to CNY 603/ton completed a second consecutive markdown (weekly -2.23%), with the futures board collapsing -3.4% to CNY 1,448/ton — its lowest print since listing, roughly halved from its CNY 2,908 high — on Shandong 32% ion-membrane liquid at CNY 590 (-25), 50% at 960 (-20), the alumina buyer's procurement price cut another CNY 10, and a capacity answer no freeze can hide: 1.77-1.87 million tons of new caustic capacity already commissioned this year, roughly 500,000 more scheduled for Q4, ~4% fleet growth, 75% utilization, and weak export FOB. The reason the plants keep running into a falling alkali price is on the same board: liquid chlorine +CNY 100 to 300/ton in Shandong — the co-product pays, the by-product bleeds, and the tracked sodium-hydroxide composite (2,567, frozen a third file) and sodium hypochlorite (528, frozen) have not conceded the spread yet. Chlorine is subsidizing caustic at the plant gate while the futures price already refuses the subsidy.

The coal-and-acid shelf stayed inert, with two genuine clocks inside it. Methanol -2.27% to CNY 4,000/ton (weekly +1.33%, monthly +8.89%) is the interesting dissent: the merchant board printed the same -2.28% level while the inland story was still supply-side (large-unit maintenance, low inland inventories, a futures spike) and the coastal story was import-tightness plus Middle East risk — the tracked composite took the inland markdown anyway, and the monthly clock says this line has already given back the October lift. Calcium carbide froze for a third still frame at CNY 2,520/ton against a Wuhai merchant tape that actually rose CNY 25 to 2,450 on 64.38% carbide utilization — the PVC squeeze above it is running on a feed the sheet still quotes flat. The sulphur-acid complex kept its slow bleed: sulfur froze again at CNY 5,564/ton (weekly -4.22%, monthly -15.61%) and sulfuric acid a fourth file at CNY 1,540/ton (monthly -9.22%). The nitrogen shelf stayed inert: urea +0.29% to CNY 1,735/ton (the merchant benchmark identical), hydrochloric acid frozen at CNY 182/ton, formic acid frozen for a fourth still frame at CNY 2,300/ton with its weekly clock positive (+5.22%) since the October supply event. Anthracite's -10.00% flip back to 1,575/ton is the band, not the market — four files, three prices, disclosed and excluded.

The metals-and-battery shelf repriced on policy while the barrels stopped paying. Cobalt -3.77% to CNY 221,800/ton, a fourth consecutive markdown and the sharpest genuine print on the board: the domestic electrolytic spot was marked down CNY 11,300 to CNY 218,300/ton (-4.9%, Northern Nonferrous October 28), hydroxide-salt inputs collapsed alongside (cobalt sulfate 45,500, chloride 55,000), and the policy mechanics explain the direction: the DRC's 2026 quota stands at 96,600 tons (about 52% of 2024 output), ARECOMS ruled that first-half allocations not shipped by June 30 expire into a strategic pool, in-transit Congolese cargo is landing in concentration, Indonesian MHP keeps scaling, and recycled cobalt now substitutes 34% of primary — while the demand leg fails structurally (September ternary installations 12.3 GWh, 14.1% share, -10.9% year-on-year; Q3 global smartphone shipments -20% year-on-year, the weakest comparable quarter since 2012). Kolwezi's enforcement sweep (roughly 300 cross-border miners detained, Musompo trading centre re-opened under the mining minister's push) adds the one variable that could bend the curve the other way: quota discipline versus actual shipment. Lithium carbonate -2.97% to CNY 98,000/ton landed exactly on the domestic industrial-grade benchmark while the futures leg broke -4.64% to CNY 93,300 (intraday low 92,320 after a 101,520 print) on an unconfirmed Jianxiawo November-restart report, October spodumene arrivals at 665,243 tons (+35.88% year-on-year) and first-November cathode schedules cut below October — the tracked sheet now sits five percent above the futures board, a gap the November contract will close from one side or the other. Lithium hydroxide froze at 80,000 (monthly -21.00%); nickel +0.06% to CNY 119,917/ton against LME -0.20% (USD 15,530) — the LME shelf rose broadly (aluminum +1.86%, copper +0.94%) and the tracked battery metals mostly did not.

Fine Chemicals: 1198 lines, 72 moved (38 up / 34 down); 19 genuine movers above one percent. The shelf's raw ranking remains band-dominated: its loudest prints — diethylene glycol divinyl ether +200.00%, 3,4-difluorobenzonitrile +175.35%, 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate +90.63%, vinylmagnesium chloride -53.15% completing yesterday's +113.46% round trip, triethylenediamine +61.77% against a -8.11% clock, 1-bromopropane +48.00% and N-phenylmaleimide -55.28% — all carry weekly clocks pointing the wrong way or sit on unexplainable bases. The confirmed board reads: up calcium thioglycolate +18.18% (filed as a band: 110/130/110/130 across four files), ammonium sulfamate +11.39% (first move after three still frames), phosphorus tribromide +7.58%, allyl glycidyl ether +5.66%, methyl 2-hydroxyisobutyrate +5.26% to CNY 120,000/ton, methyl cyanoacetate +3.57%, potassium persulfate +3.28%; down diisopropanolamine -12.32% (card three), the silicone-polyether defoamer -11.39%, calcium phosphite -8.70%, 3-cyclohexene-1-carboxaldehyde -8.47%, glyoxylic acid -3.70%, indole -3.23% (a restoration, disclosed), DBE solvent -3.15% and mixed diester -3.23% — the phthalate-solvent shelf softening in step.

The sebacic V-reversal died in one session; the castor shelf retreated to its contract book. After Tuesday's +20.97% to CNY 33,750/ton, sebacic acid fell -5.19% to CNY 32,000/ton — a second leg below its weekly clock's implied high and into the range the October 26 file had already rejected. The shelf's confirmation failed with it: castor oil froze at CNY 16,200/ton after Tuesday's +8.00% (weekly +5.33%), and dioctyl decanedioate — the acid's own plasticizer ester — froze at CNY 17,500/ton with a +6.42% week and a -8.24% month. This column asked Tuesday which side blinks first, the factory gate or the Kandla market; the exchange tape answered — NCDEX Kandla castor oil and Deesa seed set their all-time records on October 19 and 23 and have been easing since (this paper's dated frame). The acid holding CNY 32,000 against a feed benchmark that peaked eight days ago is now an inventory premium defended in one print and trimmed in the next; the diacid shelf's remaining signal is the winter nucleating-plasticizer demand that was always the real bid, and it has a month-end quote date.

The solvent shelf gave its week back in step; the boron shelf kept flipping. The dibasic-ester complex printed its first coordinated markdown of the window: DBE solvent -3.15% to CNY 9,225/ton and mixed diester -3.23% to CNY 9,000/ton, same-sign weekly clocks (-1.05% and -1.08%) confirming a genuine give-back after the October paint-and-coatings restock. Ethylene glycol diacetate -3.68% (weekly -0.52%) and 1-propanol -1.32% sit on the same soft acetate-alcohol leg, while ethyl acetate froze for a fourth still frame at CNY 7,100/ton on a +10.35% month — the benchmark solvent's book has stopped repricing while the derivatives around it do. The boron shelf is where this column's oscillator ledger grew: trimethyl phosphate -21.81% to CNY 24,500/ton snapped exactly back to its October 26 quote (a three-file round trip: 24,500 to 31,333 to 24,500), trimethyl borate sat at 10,500 after Tuesday's -14.29%, and boron trifluoride tetrahydrofuran complex +19.77% against a -4.43% clock is filed with the bands. Methyl cyanoacetate +3.57% to CNY 14,500/ton and potassium persulfate +3.28% to CNY 11,025/ton hold the acrylic-and-initiator floor with same-sign weeks; cyanoacetic acid itself froze at 8,500 — ester bidding, acid watching, the same head-versus-tail pattern the epoxide complex printed.

Nitrogen chemistry: the sulfamate broke its still frame while the amine complex repriced against its own oscillators. Ammonium sulfamate +11.39% to CNY 8,800/ton — first move after three files of 7,900, weekly +3.80%, monthly +6.51% — is the cleanest small-capacity squeeze on the shelf: the sulfamic-acid book has been flat while urea-adjacent inputs and herbicide demand re-priced around it. Against it sit three lines this column files as bands: triethylenediamine +61.77% (17,525 to 28,350 against a -8.11% week), dicyclohexylamine +10.40% on a zero weekly clock as a new-entry line (its base is the file's own opening quote, disclosed before it is believed), and DEIPA's 11,275 still frame after Tuesday's +52.72% flip. The genuine amine markdown is DIPA (card three); the genuine softness around it is structural: cyclohexylamine froze at CNY 15,350/ton for a third file carrying a +13.16% month, hexamethylenetetramine-adjacent lines flat, and the 4-aminophenol froze at CNY 16,500/ton for a fourth file, completing two full rounds of its 16,500/17,950 band. The isothiazolinone-and-pharma-aromatic tail of the shelf printed nothing: the freeze is the negotiation.

Frozen drift, library edition, round three. Across 1544 lines the non-market shelf is now the majority of the feed: 74 frozen lines carry weekly clocks of five percent or worse and 15 print zero on both day and week while carrying monthly clocks of eight percent or worse. The flags this session: aniline frozen for a sixth still frame at CNY 16,600/ton on a +14.45% month, ethylene oxide frozen for a fourth file at CNY 9,700/ton (monthly +7.93%) while its glycol-ether and ethanolamine derivatives repriced in both directions around it, 1,4-butanediol frozen at 10,338 (monthly +15.05%), cyclohexanone at 11,300 on +7.38%, isophorone frozen at 15,000 (monthly +7.42%), 4-chloroaniline frozen at 26,333 on a +8.31% month, DINP frozen at CNY 16,800/ton with a +13.37% weekly clock and the plasticizer ester shelf's month clocks refusing to agree. The merchant boards corroborate several of these (the domestic benchmark printed ethylene oxide flat at its tracked level and acetic acid at 4,460 flat for a fourth file with a +79.84% year-on-year tag) — the tracked library and the admin tape are converging on the same verdict: Q4's frozen shelf is where the next restatement risk sits, because every flat quote over a moving clock is a repricing debt that settles when the book reopens.

Energy, Rubber, Plastics and Other: 80 lines, 22 moved (14 up / 8 down); 7 genuine. The barrel shelf finally moved with the paper: WTI -1.96% to USD 100 and Brent -6.03% to USD 109 against settlements of 99.90 and 113.88 — the Brent sheet now sits below the merchant tape for the first time since the escalation premium began, the give-back over-converged. Kerosene +7.56% to CNY 9,250/ton is the shelf's genuine leader (weekly +0.59%, monthly +3.19%; the Shandong merchant jet book printed 9,907 the day before — the sheet still sits a discount to its own product market); gas oil +0.32%, gasoline +0.14% and oil material +1.12% held, LNG +0.16% to CNY 7,532/ton froze onto a +9.45% week. Plastics were one squeeze and one fade: PVC +2.36% to CNY 5,200/ton (the merchant Hangzhou SG-5 benchmark rose 115 to 5,120 the same day) while ABS -0.64% to CNY 12,917/ton gave back Tuesday's +3.94% squeeze print, LLDPE +0.49% and PET +0.09% barely moving, and polystyrene froze at 12,567 after Tuesday's +4.14% while its monomer fell -2.15% — the resin-over-monomer spread widened downward at the monomer end. LDPE and HDPE froze at 12,767 and 11,125 on positive weeks, LLDPE +0.49% and PET +0.09% barely moving, and caprolactam froze for a third file at 14,203. butadiene's feed bid (+3.12%) carried polybutadiene +1.68% to CNY 16,970/ton and natural rubber +1.18% to CNY 19,225/ton reversing Tuesday's -2.10%, with SBR +0.96%. Corrections filed: foundry sand +30.00% back to CNY 2,275 (fourth session of the 1,750/2,275 band) and the alkane block discussed on card two.

The barrel: diplomacy priced the paper down, the refining collapse priced the product up, and sanctions moved from hulls to paperwork. Tuesday's settlements (WTI USD 99.90 -1.83%, Brent 113.88 -1.67%, Reuters) priced the Tehran channel — Saudi, Turkish and Pakistani mediators with Iranian officials, the Supreme National Security Council chief briefing the Supreme Leader, four governments agreeing to continue, and no ceasefire text yet; Iran's Revolutionary Guard had struck four tankers on October 21 and three more struck mines on October 22, and October is now the highest-attack month for shipping in and around the Strait of Hormuz since tracking began in 2017 (Washington Institute). The physical book refused the relief trade: VLCC freight on the Arabia-to-Mediterranean run doubled from USD 16 to 32 a barrel, UBS raised its year-end Brent call to roughly USD 110 from USD 100, OPEC+ is reported set to hold December targets unchanged at Sunday's online meeting, and the 2026 balance estimate swung to a 1.8 million bpd deficit from a 1.7 million surplus in 2025 (Shenwan summary) — which is exactly why kerosene +7.56%, gas oil +0.32% and the tracked sheet's Brent over-correction below the merchant tape are the same event: barrels fall on headlines, product cracks do not fall while 1.45 million bpd of Middle East refining capacity sits damaged (Kpler), regional throughput runs 2.6 million bpd below pre-conflict levels, Russian attacks have cut July throughput 1.5 million bpd below January, and 5.87 million bpd of global refining capacity has retired since 2020 (S&P). The United States kept repricing the trade lane itself: OFAC's October 21 round (Operation Economic Outcast) designated a Panama-Piraeus law firm, two shipping agents and nine vessels tied to Iranian LPG, petroleum and steel flows, and FinCEN served its first Bank-Secrecy-Act subpoena on a Greek bank — sanctions have moved from hulls to incorporation papers to correspondent banking. In Europe the same policy complex produced a profit print: BASF raised its 2026 core-profit guidance for the second time this year (EUR 7.4-7.8 billion) on a +12% price effect from the March increases, with Hormuz disruption redirecting demand to European suppliers — while Evonik confirmed closing Hamburg (mid-2027) and its Bitterfeld chlorosilanes line (April 2027) on Asian supply pressure and low utilization: the war reprices the survivor, the cost curve retires the rest. The tracked propane line froze for a fifth still frame at CNY 6,150/ton against an October Saudi CP book and South-China import cost near USD 1,092/ton this week (this column's Tuesday frame): the sheet lags where the book is administered.

Plastics and rubber: India's duty wall met China's five-year-low utilization, and the tyre chain followed butadiene up. PVC +2.36% to CNY 5,200/ton is the session's most externally ratified print: the futures leg rose +3.29% to CNY 5,267 with a fresh month high and rising open interest, the weekly plant operating rate fell to 61.86% — its lowest since December 25, 2015 (Longzhong) — with the ethylene-route running at 50.80% against a 50.8%-down year-on-year, October output tracking toward 1.7 million tons (lowest since November 2022) and maintenance losses at 230,600 tons. The demand-side fact is the trade policy: India's countervailing-duty preliminary on Chinese suspension-PVC reached up to USD 143.82/ton, and India took 41.58% of China's Jan-Sep PVC exports (1.1942 million tons) — a duty wall built on a flow that is now re-routing toward Africa and Central Asia while domestic FOB quotes rose into USD 745-780. The cost floor is the rest of the trade: carbide-route producers lose CNY 293/ton and ethylene-route 881, the Wuhai carbide tape firmed +25 to 2,450 on 64.38% utilization, and ethylene holds at USD 1,160-1,180 CFR — the resin is rising through an industry-wide loss, which is not demand, that is supply arithmetic plus a duty umbrella. The rubber shelf turned the same page: butadiene +3.12% to CNY 14,300/ton matched the merchant board exactly (October 13,840 to 14,300, +3.32% for the month) with the Asia-Europe arbitrage at a 490-dollar spread (Korea FOB 1,685-1,693 against Rotterdam FOB 1,215-1,223), and polybutadiene +1.68%, SBR +0.96% and natural rubber +1.18% all followed the feed while carbon black froze for a fourth still frame at CNY 10,771/ton and asphalt sat at 6,265 on a +5.37% week. The tyre chain is bidding synthetic feed and accepting the markdown on the resin side — a margin squeeze moving from the mixer upstream.

What a quiet, directional session adds up to. The correction ledger this session: of 139 moving lines, 2 landed exactly back on Tuesday's published level and 45 of the 53 largest prints failed the weekly-plus-base-plus-band test — leaving 39 weekly-corroborated, non-restoration, non-oscillator prints above one percent as the tradable market of a 1,544-line feed, the narrowest genuine board of the week. Four housekeeping notes with market content: base restatements fell to 3 cells (Monday's 86, Tuesday's 6) so the prints can finally be read as market; the four-file oscillator ledger grew (pyrrhotite's 350/400 flip, calcium thioglycolate's 110/130, foundry sand's 1,750/2,275, anthracite's 1,575/1,750, trimethyl phosphate's and tris(chloropropyl) phosphate's snap-backs to October 26, and 3-nitrobenzoic acid's return within 0.1% of its own week-ago quote — a band is a band whichever direction it prints); feed membership churned again ( 64 tracked lines exited, including 2,4-dinitrochlorobenzene, coal tar and crude benzene, 87 entered, mostly with zero-daily opening quotes — new-entry lines are disclosed before they are believed); and mineral oil printed nothing for a second file on a base the series has re-marked repeatedly over ten days. What survives the noise is the session's thesis: policy is repricing the sheet faster than merchants are repricing the barrels — a crude board that finally fell with diplomacy while kerosene rose against it, a resin that rose on India's duty wall and China's lowest PVC utilization in a decade while its co-product's futures leg hit a listing low, a battery metal and a battery salt that both fell on quota mechanics and restart reports rather than orders, and a gas byproduct that keeps chasing a cash market the external tape now says may roll over in November. The dated fuses worth pricing next week: OPEC+'s Sunday online meeting on the December target, the Federal Reserve's October decision inside the super-central-bank week (markets price a hold with December hike odds alive), the Jianxiawo environmental-approval window, India's CVD final-duty timeline, and the November argon restart calendar that SCI's soft guidance is already leaning on.