Pre-launch preview — Mol is not live yet. Figures may include pilot and demo data.

About Mol

Built for buyers who need
a number they can trust.

Mol is a polymer price intelligence tool for professional buyers of PVC SG-5/K-67. We aggregate public market data, run a transparent walk-forward model, and surface the China ex-factory price and CFR Mundra landed cost with honest uncertainty built in.

The problem

China PVC pricing is opaque. The landed cost calculation is error-prone. Policy exposure is tracked manually.

India imports roughly 62% of the PVC it consumes, and about 71% of that volume comes from China — landed cost is the price. Yet reliable China PVC spot prices are locked behind expensive licensed databases (SunSirs, SCI99) or scraped from fragmented broker reports. Most teams work from weekly market letters or gut feel.

The landed cost calculation — ex-factory CNY to Mundra gate in USD, including BCD, SWS, and IGST — is done in spreadsheets that may not reflect current freight rates or the latest FX. ADD/CVD duty status is tracked by hand, if at all.

When a DGTR ruling comes through, procurement teams often learn about it from a supplier, not their own monitoring. That's a structural disadvantage.

Our approach

A model you can interrogate, not just a number to trust blindly.

Mol aggregates five primary public market data sources (plus a secondary naphtha proxy), applies a latency-gated feature pipeline, and runs a HistGradientBoostingRegressor walk-forward backtest. The result is a daily price nowcast with a 90% empirical confidence interval.

The CFR Mundra landed cost uses SCFI composite freight proxy plus static lane basis, current duty rates (BCD 7.5%, SWS 10%, IGST 18%), and indicative FX. Every assumption is documented and disclosed.

ADD/CVD policy events are tracked against DGTR and CBIC records. The duty is NOT included in the landed cost until CBIC issues a formal customs notification — a distinction most tools get wrong.

Eight principles we never compromise on.

No data leakage.

Every feature is latency-gated before the prediction date.

Walk-forward only.

Model trains exclusively on data prior to each prediction month.

Baselines are mandatory.

GBM is always benchmarked against last-price, futures-only, and MA baselines.

  • Shock weeks are labeled and reported separately.
  • Model version, data version, and as-of date are visible in every output.
  • Confidence score derives from empirical OOS residuals, not assumed distributions.
  • ADD/CVD duty excluded from landed cost until CBIC notification is confirmed.
  • All prices labeled "Model-only indicative" unless sourced from a transaction index.

Six public series, disclosed upfront.

Mol uses only publicly accessible data. All sources are documented in the engine configuration and disclosed with every output.

SourceSeriesLatencyStatus
100ppi.com (akshare)China PVC SG-5 spot, CNY/MT, dailyT+1Active
DCE (akshare)V futures close and volumeT+1Active
ZCE (akshare)ZC coking coal futures — carbide-route feedstockT+1Active
EIAUSGC naphtha, weekly — secondary/global proxyT+10Proxy
FREDWTI crude, dailyT+1Active
akshareUSD/CNY, USD/INR FX ratesT+1Active

Naphtha (EIA USGC) is marked Proxy because it is a global/ethylene-route proxy, not a primary input for China carbide-route PVC. EIA naphtha is NOT used as the primary cost-driver in Track A engine output.

Scope & limitations

What Mol is not.

Not a transaction index. Mol outputs are labeled "Model-only indicative price" and should not be used as contract reference prices. For transaction indexing, use a licensed price reporting agency (PRA) service.

Not real-time FX. The USD/CNY exchange rate used for CFR calculation is indicative (≈ 7.25) and not refreshed in real time. Use your bank's FX desk for actual transaction FX.

Not legal advice. ADD/CVD policy information is informational only. Consult a licensed customs broker or trade attorney before making import decisions based on duty status.

Scope: China SG-5/K-67 only. Mol covers PVC suspension resin, K-value 55–77, from China origin. Other polymers (PE, PP, PVC paste, CPVC), other origins (Korea, Japan, Taiwan), and other grades are out of scope.

Interested in early access?

Mol is in closed beta. Reach out to discuss whether it fits your procurement workflow.

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