Europe top stories - weekly summary

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Austria’s Lenzing builds fibre plant as part of €285m expansion
Lenzing is building a 60,000 tonne/year high-grade specialty fibre plant in Austria as part of an expansion programme to boost its overall production capacity to 1m tonnes by 2014.

Dow Chemical stops all new orders for Europe December LLDPE
Dow Chemical has stopped all fresh orders in Europe for linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) for December.

Europe PE spot prices soar as sellers withdraw from market
Polyethylene (PE) buyers in Europe who are trying to obtain extra volumes in an effort to avoid higher prices in January face increased spot prices from traders and closed order books from producers.

Europe MEG producer targets €70/tonne increase in January
A Europe-based producer of monoethylene glycol (MEG) is targeting an increase of €70/tonne ($92/tonne) in the January contract price, up from December’s €975/tonne, because of rising feedstock costs and tight supply.

Europe C2, C3 Jan CP talks underway, sharp rises expected
European ethylene (C2) and propylene (C3) January contracts will rise significantly because of high upstream costs and tight supply-demand fundamentals.