China demand for recycled PE, PP to fall 25% in 2009

SHANGHAI (ICIS news)--China’s demand for recycled polyolefins is expected to decline by around 25% year on year in 2009, an industry analyst said on Friday.

The country's demand in 2008 stood at around 9.3m tonnes, said Longston Li, polyolefins industry analyst with commodity information service CBI, on the sidelines of the Olefins Outlook China 2010 conference.

"This [decline] is due to the narrowing of the price gap between recycled and virgin polyolefins prices in the first of half of 2009 compared with same period last year," Li said.

"The price gap between recycled and virgin polyolefins decreased year on year to around $110/tonne (€73/tonne) in the first half of 2009 from $140-150/tonne due to a downtrend in polyolefins prices in the first half of 2009," Li added.

Demand for recycled polyolefins was likely to increase marginally in 2010, Li said.

China's demand for recycled polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) was expected to remain unchanged from last year due to a wide gap of $140-150/tonne in prices of recycled and virgin material following a rise in PE and PP prices in recent months, Li said.

The two-day conference, organised by CBI China, ends on Friday.

($1= €0.67)