November IPEX climbs to highest level since June

02 November 2010 17:14  [Source: ICIS news]

By Sheenal Khimasia

LONDON (ICIS)--The ICIS Petrochemical Index (IPEX) for November rose for the third consecutive month to its highest level since June.

The November index strengthened by almost 5% to 279.75 from a revised* October figure of 267.46.

The Asian component of the index hiked by 6.4% on increases in all product prices. Butadiene (BD) rose by 10% as a result of stronger Chinese demand and higher naphtha and crude prices.

The European component rose by 4.4%, aided by the dollar’s further weakening against the euro. Most product prices were down in euro terms, but all increased in dollar terms, except butadiene, which plummeted drastically on ample supply and softening demand. The US component edged up by just 1.3%, with rises primarily in polyethylene (PE) and paraxylene (PX) being limited by declines in BD and propylene.

Published at the beginning of each month, the IPEX provides an independent indicator of average change in world petrochemical prices.

Dating back to January 1993, historical ICIS prices for a basket of 12 essential petrochemical products in the US, western Europe and northeast Asian markets have been weighted by regional nameplate capacity to generate a monthly index value.

The IPEX product basket comprises ethylene, propylene, benzene, toluene, PX, styrene, methanol, BD, polyvinyl chloride (PVC), PE, polypropylene (PP) and polystyrene (PS).

The October IPEX has been revised upwards from 267.26 to 267.46, following incorporation of the US September styrene contract settlement. This month’s index is also subject to revision once the US October styrene and ethylene and Asian October styrene contracts settle.

*As of July 2010, the index has been revised retrospectively to replace latest available contract prices at the time of publication that had previously been used in the data series with actual settled contract prices. This has had the effect of moving the derived IPEX index from an estimated status to an actual status.

The revised historical IPEX data is available from ICIS on request
View a full methodology of the revised IPEX
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By: Staff Reporter
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