Europe PET sellers target €70/t price hike due to high costs

04 December 2009 23:59  [Source: ICIS news]

LONDON (ICIS news)--European polyethylene terephthalate (PET) producers are targeting increases of up to €70/tonne ($106/tonne) due to higher feedstock costs and low inventories, sources said on Friday.

“I fear an increase of €50/tonne would only cover the raw materials. European producers seem to be sold out as Indorama’s UK shutdown caused a deluge of requests for material,” a producer said.

Floods forced Indorama to declare force majeure on PET at its Workington, UK, facility for a week in late November. This, buyers and sellers agreed, caused a noticeable impact on the market.

With many European producers experiencing financial difficulties, Europe was becoming increasingly dependent on imports. So far this month, however, news of imports was limited.

“China is buying like mad lately,” a reseller noted.

Prices in Asia were on the up, and as a result material from there was less competitive, players agreed. Asia was operating at $1,180/tonne FOB Asia, if not higher, according to data from global chemical market intelligence service ICIS pricing.

“The Chinese are in no hurry to sell because they know that feedstocks are firm and customers will need to buy sooner or later,” another reseller said.

Stocks in Europe had depleted partly because of the recent availability problems, but also because so many had envisaged a price decrease in December.

“People have low stocks because they expected the price to collapse,” an upstream purified terephthalic acid (PTA) producer commented, echoing comments from other industry players.

Upstream paraxylene (PX) prices for December jumped up by €60/tonne this week to €740/tonne FD (free delivered) NWE (northwest Europe), giving sellers more reasons to further pull up PET’s main feedstock, PTA.

Even ethylene went up by €7/tonne to €840/tonne FD NWE, which could mean more increases for the other feedstock, monoethylene glycol (MEG), sources said.

“The price [of PET] is going in the direction of €950/tonne. You are lucky if you get material,” the reseller added.

November prices went up on average by €40/tonne to settle at €890-920/tonne FD Europe from October’s €850-920/tonne FD Europe.

The ICIS reference prices settled at €1,345-1,525/tonne FD West Europe and €1,060-1,070/tonne FD East Europe.

($1 = €0.66)

ICIS has launched weekly pricing reports in Africa for polyethylene and polypropylene. For more information contact Nadine Spoeri
For more on PET  visit ICIS chemical intelligence
To discuss issues facing the chemical industry go to ICIS connect

By: Caroline Howard
+44 20 8652 3214

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