Asphalt is difficult to rise sharply

At present, the operating rate of asphalt refineries has risen to a historical high, but the terminal demand is weak. The refineries and the society continue to accumulate a small amount of storage, suppressing the asphalt price to a certain extent.

Oil price is hard to change oscillation pattern

At the OPEC + jmmc meeting held in late August, members of the alliance reiterated their willingness to continue to adjust oil prices by reducing production. In addition, Iraq, Nigeria and Kazakhstan have promised to improve the implementation of their production reduction, and will reduce additional production in August and September to offset the excess production in recent months. Meanwhile, Saudi energy minister said in the OPEC + ministerial video conference held in late August that global oil demand is expected to return to 97% of pre epidemic level by the end of this year. Novel coronavirus pneumonia is not optimistic in the world. But it is important to note that the new peak pneumonia is not effectively controlled globally, and the results of the vaccine development have not yet been put into large scale. The expected recovery of international crude oil demand is still uncertain. The space above the oil price may be relatively limited, and the oscillation pattern is difficult to change in the short term.

Asphalt supply is high

In August, due to the launch of new asphalt production capacity and the high start-up of existing capacity, the market supply continued to be high. From the perspective of production profit, with Marui crude oil as raw material, the profit of asphalt production continues to be better than that of coking, which drives the enthusiasm of asphalt producers to increase. In addition, there is still a stock of low-cost crude oil in the early stage, and some refineries are actively looking for alternative processing to produce asphalt, which makes the domestic asphalt supply show an increasing trend. From the perspective of refinery maintenance, the current maintenance capacity of refinery units is at a low level, and under the background of the recent increase of daily asphalt production on a month on month basis, the planned output of refineries nationwide will remain at a high level in August, reaching 3.347 million tons; it is predicted that the asphalt output will also reach a high level of more than 3 million tons in September when the refinery output and profit level remain unchanged.

The accumulated pressure of asphalt storage is large

In August, affected by the flood situation of the Yangtze River, the water transportation route from East China to southwest was interrupted several times, and the demand in the superimposed area was general, resulting in the accumulation of reservoir pressure in the East China refinery. At the same time, due to the impact of heavy rainfall weather in North China, the demand in the region was greatly affected, and the inventory rate of Shandong refinery continued to rise month on month. At present, the asphalt market as a whole is at a high level of construction and storage. Under the current situation that the maintenance quantity of refinery equipment is at a low level, if the refinery operation rate does not show any downward trend, the contradiction between supply and demand will continue to intensify, and the pressure of asphalt refinery inventory and social inventory will be difficult to ease.

From the perspective of futures market, asphalt futures price in late August entered the oscillation range, mainly due to poor fundamentals. The base of asphalt contract slightly strengthened in 2012. As of September 1, spot premium futures in East China market were 20-30 yuan / ton, while spot discount in Shandong market was still nearly 200 yuan / ton. In terms of monthly price difference, there is no obvious change in monthly price difference of asphalt, which maintains contango structure.

In a word, it is difficult for asphalt prices to go up sharply in the short term. If there is no obvious effect in September, the market will continue to show the phenomenon of "low peak season". (author's unit: Huishang futures)