In China, only PetroChina Liaoyang Petrochemical and PetroChina Sichuan Petrochemical shut down their PX units for maintenance as scheduled in 2018. The average operating rate of China’s PX units is 66.94% as of the middle of April, up 1.12% from the same period of 2017. In the other Asian countries, most of the PX units’ maintenance were short-term maintenance. In the meantime, several newly added units were put into production in Vietnam and Saudi Arabia. On the demand side, some large PTA units will be shut down for maintenance in the second quarter in China. According to SCI, the PX consumption volume from the PTA units will drop by around 260kt.