Unpredictable plastics markets shadow Europe PlastMilan opening

MILAN (ICIS)–PlastMilan 2015 opened its doors in Milan on Tuesday at a time when some plastics markets remain under extreme circumstances, several sources said.

“We just can’t predict what will happen in the polystyrene (PS) market, things are so unusual,” said one large buyer.

“We have never seen it [markets] like this,” said a distributor, talking of the tightness in the polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) sectors.

“Exports have been very good, however,” it added.

PE and PP supply has been tight in recent weeks, following a series of forces majeures (FM) that have left some PE grades in particular short.

“Medium density [polyethylene] MDPE is dramatic,” said the distributor, “and I hardly know what blowmoulding is it’s so long since I saw any.”

Grades that were in short supply were generally those where imported volumes have taken the place of local supply, as the weak euro and the increase in import duty from regular importers was increased in January 2015.

Prices have soared in recent months as buyers have been obliged to pay hefty three-digit increases to be able to get hold of their volumes.

“I can see this lasting until September,” said the distributor. “Spot supply is impossible to come by and there is a big backlog.”

PlastMilan is due to run from 5-9 May.