清晨洞察：2025年8月21日

Morning Insight:August 21, 2025 LinlinGaoCertification：Z0002332gaolinlin@gtht.comYu Chen Wu (Contact)Certification：F03133175 wuyuchen@gtht.com Main Body Commodity MarketInsight： Lithium carbonate:All futures contracts hit limit down, with more than60,000 positions reduced. After the absolute price decline, spot tradingactivity has significantly strengthened. Previously, the main 2511lithium carbonate futures contract surged to 90,100 yuan/ton, and themarket subsequently focused on whether further production cuts at othermines would cause disruptions. Overall, market expectations have beenfully priced in, or attention has turned to expectations of increasedproduction at lithium mines and lithium salt plants resuming operationsunder high prices. Driven by two events—the lithium mine side and thelithium salt side—on the mine side, according to ZhonglianjinInformation, due to price factors, Australian ore originally destined forSouth Korea has been redirected to China. On the lithium salt side, onAugust 19, Jiangte Motor announced that its subsidiary Yichun YinliNewEnergy Co., Ltd. recently completed shutdown maintenance and officiallyresumed production. The purpose of the shutdown and maintenance was tofurther reduce production costs and ensure the safe and stable operationof equipment going forward. Looking back, the company had previouslyannounced that Yichun Yinli planned to begin shutdown maintenance on July25, involving all lithiumsalt production lines, with an expectedmaintenance period of about 26 days. The resumption of production alignswith the listed company’s and the market’s expectations. At present,with lithium carbonate supply caught between expectations and reality, lithium carbonate prices face sharp fluctuations, and investors areadvised to hold positions cautiously. Ethylene:The domestic petrochemical industry’s fight against internalcompetition has not yet broken away from the standards of 2023–2024, andthe current phase of eliminations and technological upgrades has largelybeen fulfilled. The elimination of ethylene units below 300,000 tons islimited in scale, but during the“15th Five-Year Plan”period, higher-standard industrial guidance policies and dual energy-consumption controlstandards can be expected. If the elimination threshold for ethylene weregradually raised to 500,000 tons, the scale of eliminations would impactthe existing market. Since petrochemical project approvals will berestricted starting in 2026, China’s ethylene sector will enter its finalstage of capacity commissioning by 2027, and supply–demand conditionswill be awaiting improvement. As for South Korea’s ethylene capacity eliminations, judging from theadditions and eliminations scheduled for next year, the country isexpected to lose about 1–1.5 million tons (actual) of ethylene capacity.Against the backdrop of Asia’s high level of new capacity scheduled for2025, this amount of elimination remains limited. Looking at downstreamsegments, the new projects South Korea will commission in 2026 are mainlyplastics. Although plastics also account for a large share of theeliminated facilities, the existing plastic capacity may still see asituation of not decreasing but increasing instead. Ethylene glycoloutput itself is relatively low, styrene imports into China are limited,and the impact on the domestic market is minor, whereas VCM could be moresignificantly affected. Therefore, even if South Korea eliminates as muchas 3.8 million tons of capacity by 2026 under the highest limit scenario,the overall impact on the Asian petrochemical market would still berelatively limited. MEG:Imports have declined, leading to a marginal destocking of ethyleneglycol, with a slightly stronger bias on the unilateral side. Yesterday,the South Korean government announced that a domestic petrochemical groupwould reduce naphtha cracking capacity. Although new ethylene units arestill expected to come online both at home and abroad, keeping overallsupply in surplus, the news temporarily disrupted market sentiment forolefin-related products. From the perspective of ethylene glycol’s ownfundamentals, most domestic plants are running at full capacity, whileshort-term imports remain relatively low, driving further visibleinventory reduction. On the demand side, polyester operating rates havebottomed out and are beginning to rebound, with further increasesexpected in the future. Therefore, in the short term, the outlook remainsmoderately bullish. From a medium-to long-term perspective, however, theJanuary contract will face supply pressure from the commissioning of twonew units, which will cap the upside for ethylene glycol. The September–January spread is expected to remain in the range of-50 to 0. Stock Index Futures:Market sentiment remains the dominant driver,keeping the overall tone firm. Yesterday, after some choppiness, theShanghai Composite climbed to a fresh ten-year high, making the bullishtrend very clear. Recently, the market has displ