Europe benzene spot prices rise with tight availability

LONDON (ICIS)–European benzene prices rose towards the end of the week, with sources on Friday pointing to limited prompt supply and a normal increase towards the end of the month.

Traders pointed to shutdowns across Europe, keeping supply tight. As a result, October pricing had risen by the end of the week to $1,280-1,300/tonne from $1,230-1,260/tonne at the end of last week. November prices are seen as rising.

“There are too many production problems. I cannot commit [to a trade] when I don’t know when suppliers can deliver. October is trading at $1,280-1,300/tonne. My view is that November will follow given the shortness. November sees a lot of bids, but offers are very rare,” said a trader.

“There are indications that the physical market is still tight … market is short and imports are coming, but this doesn’t solve October,” said a second trader.

Others point to weakening demand as likely to bring the market into balance in the mid-term.

“I think on the prompt it is maybe tight, but do not think foregoing it is… it’s all a bit uncertain. Why should we stay tight with the [weak] downstream demand?,” said a benzene buyer.

However, others point to demand which is no weaker than normal.

“There is demand from the Med [Mediterranean] … there are so many outages on the production side. I’m not sure downstream is worse than before. It was already bad,” said the second trader.