Polyester and the regenerated fibres

More than half the fibre the world spins is not cotton. The twelve fibre steps hold unchanged when the fibre is man-made; what changes is the words on the specification, where the price is set, and what you test on arrival. This is that difference, in one place.

The prices, as this site reads them

• China polyester staple spot 9,086 CNY/t ≈ 1.36 $/kg · spot of 16 October 2026 · SunSirs · read 16 October 2026
• China polyester staple futures 8,226 CNY/t ≈ 1.23 $/kg · December 2026 · Zhengzhou exchange · settlement of 16 October 2026 · read 16 October 2026

An import unit value is the customs average of everything that cleared that month, every grade and origin, about two months behind; no mill will sell at it, but it is an honest level. The two Chinese lines are the pair to read together: the spot assessment is what the physical market actually paid on the day, the settlement is what the same market expects to pay at delivery. When spot sits above the futures month the cash market is the tighter of the two, and a quotation built off the futures screen is built off a price nobody can buy at today. Both are quoted as credited facts, the spot from SunSirs and the settlement from the Zhengzhou exchange; the dollar conversion is ours, at the ECB reference cross of 6.6862 yuan to the dollar on 16 October 2026, read 16 October 2026. The full module, with the twelve month history, the chain ladder from crude oil down, and every date, is on the numbers page, and the Monday email carries these lines beside the cotton rows.

Polyester staple: the spec words that replace the cotton ones

Cotton is specified by what the plant grew. Polyester staple is specified by what the factory was asked to make, so the specification is shorter and stricter, and a seller who is vague on any of these lines is quoting a different product:

• Denier and cut length. The fineness and the length, the two numbers that decide which counts it can spin. The usual workhorse for cotton-system spinning is 1.4 denier at 38 mm, chosen to run beside cotton in a blend.
• Tenacity. The strength, in grams per denier or cN/tex. Ordinary apparel grades and high-tenacity grades are different products at different money.
• Lustre and colour. Semi-dull is the apparel default; bright, full-dull, optical white and dope-dyed black are each their own line, and dope-dyed saves a dyeing downstream.
• Virgin or recycled. Recycled polyester starts as bottle-grade PET chip. If your customer claims recycled content, the fibre needs a recycled-content certificate, commonly GRS, and the claim travels on paper, not on the fibre's appearance.

Where the price is set: China, which is why the reading order for step 3 points at the polyester module rather than at a cotton exchange. The chain runs from crude oil through PX and PTA to the fibre, and it is laid out link by link in the polyester chain section. Crude and the Chinese settlement are the direction; the Chinese spot assessment is the level the physical market is actually trading at today, and the import unit value is the level your own customs data has already proved, two months back.

The regenerated family: viscose, modal, lyocell

Regenerated fibre is wood pulp dissolved and spun again, which makes it chemically close to cotton: it takes the same dye classes, breathes like a natural fibre, and loses a large part of its strength when wet, which is why the property to ask for is tenacity dry and wet. Modal and lyocell are the stronger, more stable members of the family; lyocell can fibrillate, which finishers use deliberately for peach-skin surfaces. The published property ranges, including the wet-strength loss, are in the fibre properties table.

There is no viscose futures price this site can read, so the level checks are the import unit value above and the pulp market behind it. One weight rule matters at contract time: the trade settles invoiced weight at a commercial moisture regain that differs by fibre, and viscose carries one of the highest allowances, so on a blended contract the ratio changes the weight you pay for, not only the fibre bill. The allowances are in the same properties table, and the blend clause in the yarn levers says what to fix on the contract.

What changes across the twelve steps

Step 1, the spec

Denier, cut length, tenacity, lustre, finish and grade replace staple, micronaire, strength, grade and trash.

Step 3, the market

The Chinese settlement, the Chinese spot assessment and the import unit values replace the cotton futures and the origin spots. Read the settlement and the spot as a pair: the first is the forward view, the second is what was actually paid on the day.

Step 5, one basis

Simpler than cotton: the trade already quotes dollars per kilogram, so the work is landing it, not converting it.

Step 9, customs

Polyester staple clears under heading 5503.20 and viscose staple under 5504.10, not under cotton's 5201.

Step 10, the tests

Denier, cut length, tenacity and moisture against the contract replace the HVI test. Wet tenacity too, for the regenerated fibres.

Everything else, two to four sellers, one basis, the contract, the credit, the claim window, the record, runs exactly as written in the fibre steps. For a Pakistani mill the two fibres arrive differently: polyester staple is both made in the country and imported, while viscose comes in from abroad, so lead time and duty want checking per fibre, and our duty page does not carry the 5503 and 5504 lines yet, so for those the clearing agent is the check.