Tight supply drives Europe spot ethylene prices to 5-month high

Nel Weddle

31-Mar-2015

LONDON (ICIS)–A much tightened supply and demand balance has pushed spot ethylene prices into four-digit territory, not seen since October of last year, market sources said on Tuesday.

A deal for 3,000 tonnes delivery in April and May was concluded Tuesday at €1,020/tonne FD (free delivered) NWE (northwest Europe), effectively April contract price (CP) plus about 6%. Spot prices were at CP minus 18-19% at the start of the year and only very recently at CP minus 8-9%.

A number of unplanned cracker issues have further tightened a market already dealing with planned maintenance outages and robust demand the stimulation of which has been attributed to the weak euro.

The April ethylene CP was fully confirmed at €965/tonne FD NWE, up by €55/tonne from March, earlier on Tuesday.

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