Lead: Hopes for optimistic US-Iran negotiations have dampened international oil prices recently, weakening the overall commodity trend. However, with continuously declining inventories at East China ports and a persistently tight domestic supply pattern, the diethylene glycol market has shown relative resilience.

Recent market sentiment has turned pessimistic. The optimistic outlook for US-Iran talks has led to a rapid oil price decline, suppressing market sentiment, with domestic chemicals seeing the largest drops. However, on the supply side, diethylene glycol supply continues to shrink, with expectations of further reduction in the future. Port arrivals are low, port inventories are likely to keep falling, and downstream raw material inventories are generally low, providing some support from the demand side. The domestic diethylene glycol market remains relatively resilient within the industrial chain.

After the May Day holiday, unsaturated resin operating rates have picked up slightly, with overall rates now around 32%. Downstream orders are generally average, and most enterprises are maintaining low operating rates, making further increases difficult. In the polyester sector, there are production cut plans from leading enterprises, but the restart of units at Jixing and Shenghong will somewhat limit the downside. Overall, demand is tepid, but the potential for further decline is limited.

This week, the diethylene glycol port inventory in East China stood at 14,800 tons, a historic low. Specifically: Zhangjiagang Changjiang International 9,300 tons, Fubao 5,500 tons. From May 21 to May 27, the total shipments from the Changjiang International and Fubao warehouse areas at the main East China ports were 3,726 tons, with an average daily shipment of about 532 tons. Regarding expected port arrivals, only 1,130 tons of imported cargo are scheduled to arrive at the main ports in the near term. Combined with recent shipment data, the main ports are still expected to continue destocking.

In the short term, there are many unstable factors in the Middle East, and market sentiment has turned cautious again. From a supply-demand perspective, domestic supply is expected to contract, imports remain at low levels, main port inventories are continuously declining, demand is lackluster with insufficient driving force, and the overall supply-demand balance remains tight. The East China diethylene glycol market is expected to maintain a rangebound pattern.