1. Report Industry Investment Rating - The investment rating for the methanol industry is maintained as neutral [5] 2. Core Viewpoints of the Report - The methanol market is currently in a complex situation. From the port perspective, downstream MTO units are under maintenance, while the external market's high - operating rate and increased imports have not led to port inventory accumulation due to the open window for port - to - inland methanol flow. Whether the port can return to the inventory accumulation cycle depends on inland supply and demand. Inland coal - based methanol maintenance peak has passed, but the increase in operating rate is slow, and the traditional downstream operating rate remains resilient. The production profit of coal - based methanol is still relatively high [4] 3. Summary According to the Directory 3.1 Methanol Viewpoint - The current domestic methanol operating rate shows slight fluctuations. The operating rate of Zhuochuang methanol is 71.04% (-2.47%), and that in the northwest is 77.87% (-4.01%). Some methanol plants have restarted or undergone maintenance recently. The inventory in the northwest has decreased to 17.9 tons (-0.9), and the pending orders in the northwest have increased to 16.0 tons (+2.3). The traditional downstream operating rate is 42.55% (-0.19%), with different trends in various sub - sectors. The port inventory has decreased to 58.1 tons (-10.9), and the expected import volume from April 25 to May 11, 2025, is 53.37 tons [2][3] 3.2 Methanol Basis Structure - The report presents the trends of the methanol main contract, Taicang basis, and inter - period spreads from March 2022 to April 2025, as well as the basis differences between spot prices in different regions and the main futures contract [12][14] 3.3 Methanol Production Profit, MTO Profit, Import Profit - The report shows the trends of Inner Mongolia coal - based methanol production profit, East China MTO profit, and import spreads from 2023 to 2025, including the spreads between CFR Southeast Asia - CFR China, FOB US Gulf - CFR China, and FOB Rotterdam - CFR China [17][19][21] 3.4 Methanol Port Inventory and MTO Operating Rate - It shows the trends of methanol port total inventory, inventory in different ports (Jiangsu, Zhejiang, South China), and MTO operating rate from 2023 to 2025 [35][36][38] 3.5 Domestic Methanol Operating Rate, Inland Inventory, Inland Orders - The report presents the trends of domestic methanol operating rate, northwest methanol operating rate, inland factory sample inventory, and inland pending orders from 2023 to 2025 [40][44][54] 3.6 Traditional Downstream Operating Rate - It shows the trends of the weighted operating rate of traditional downstream industries and the operating rates of formaldehyde, dimethyl ether, MTBE, and acetic acid from 2023 to 2025 [59][61][63] 3.7 Regional Price Differences - The report presents the price differences between different regions such as Lubei - Northwest - 280, East China - Inner Mongolia - 550, Taicang - Lunan - 250 from 2023 to 2025 [72]