SMM July 22 news:
The titanium dioxide market continued a weak and steady trend overall on July 22. Price-wise, the lower end of rutile titanium dioxide offers in the Panxi region dropped to around 14,000 yuan/mt, with actual orders negotiable and transaction prices generally lower than quoted prices. The lower end of anatase titanium dioxide prices was around 13,000 yuan/mt.
Supply side, divergence was more pronounced. Some enterprises coped with market pressure through production halts and maintenance, while mainstream large-scale producers maintained stable output and largely achieved a balance between production and sales. Demand side, overall weakness persisted, driven by three main factors: first, the continued contraction of traditional industries such as construction dragged down downstream demand for coatings and other products; second, the current seasonal demand off-season led to low downstream operating rates, making it difficult to achieve volume growth; third, optimistic market expectations in March triggered concentrated stockpiling, which overdrew some demand in advance, and currently downstream players are still mainly digesting inventories. Overall, new orders in the market were weak, and the trading atmosphere was sluggish. For the outlook, the market generally holds expectations of a recovery and improvement, but actual improvement still awaits the substantial release of downstream orders, with wait-and-see sentiment still dominating in the short term.
