Europe November benzene settles up €42/tonne at €547/tonne

30 October 2009 17:56  [Source: ICIS news]

LONDON (ICIS news)--The European November benzene contract has settled at €547/tonne ($816/tonne), up €42/tonne from October, in line with higher spot values caused by a tighter market, two producers and two consumers said on Friday.

The settlement, which followed an initial agreement earlier on Friday afternoon, was made at a dollar concept of $809/tonne FOB (free on board) NWE (northwest Europe) and converted to the euro price at an officially agreed exchange rate of $1.4788 to €1, according to one of the producers involved.

“I agreed to $809/tonne, which is slightly above what I wanted, but still a very acceptable number,” one of the consumers said.

Sources said that low water levels on the Rhine River and an unexpected outage at major producer Dow Chemical had pushed spot values up in the course of the month.

Low inventories and few imports from other regions further contributed to the increase in numbers, sources said.

Despite the higher benzene numbers, some sources said there were few incentives to produce benzene under the current circumstances.

Upstream naphtha values were pegged at $649-659/tonne CIF (cost, insurance and freight) NWE (northwest Europe) and gasoline trades were reported at $704-721/tonne FOB (free on board) AR (Amsterdam, Rotterdam), according to global chemical market intelligence service ICIS pricing on Friday.

At the same time, November spot benzene values were pegged at $800-810/tonne CIF ARA (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Antwerp) by the close of business on Friday, which made it “difficult to make any money out of the production of benzene”, the seller involved in the negotiations said.

However, most sources agreed that inventories were low and that any disruptions in supply would see an immediate upward effect on pricing, especially since there were no imports expected from other regions due to closed arbitrage opportunities.

At the same time, several sources noted that the market could turn long in November, since Dow was expected to restart its unit at Terneuzen, the Netherlands, in early November.

“October was tight and inventories were low. If Dow starts producing normally again, the market can see oversupply,” a trader said.

($1 = €0.67)

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By: Madelon Ten Cate
+44 20 8652 3214

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