Polimeri Europa’s Ragusa LDPE coming back on line

14 April 2010 12:21  [Source: ICIS news]

LONDON (ICIS news)—Polimeri Europa’s 110,000 tonne/year low density polyethylene (LDPE) line at Ragusa in Italy is coming back on stream after a week-long unplanned outage, a company source said on Wednesday.

“It is coming on line at the moment,” said the source.

Polimeri Europa has two LDPE lines at Ragusa. The second smaller line, with a capacity of 60,000 tonnes/year, was not affected by the technical issues which brought down the larger line on 7 April.

LDPE prices were higher in April as product availability remained tight.

LDPE net prices were trading around €1,220-1,250/tonne FD (free delivered) NWE (northwest Europe), up by €40-50/tonne ($54-68/tonne) over March.

LDPE prices had already risen by over €250/tonne in 2010. Buyers expected prices to fall at some point in 2010, but sellers argued major new capacities were due to produce mainly linear low density PE (LLDPE) and high density PE (HDPE) grades. Inventories were low across the board, both with buyers and sellers.

LDPE is used mainly for film in the packaging sector.

PE producers in Europe include LyondellBasell, Borealis, SABIC, Total Petrochemicals, Polimeri Europa, Dow Chemical, Repsol, and INEOS Olefins & Polymers.

($1 = €0.74)

By: Linda Naylor
+44 20 8652 3214

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