IPEX down 7.0% in September on olefins price falls, benzene crash

LONDON (ICIS)–Petrochemical prices continued to fall in September sequentially and year on year in the volatile oil price and uncertain global demand environment, ICIS data showed on Tuesday.

The global ICIS Petrochemical Index (IPEX) for September, at 214.16 was 7.0% lower than the revised index for August moving down sharply as aromatics prices crashed and olefins prices weakened.

The global IPEX, which reflects price movements for a basket of 12 petrochemical products including the major olefins and polymers, was down 33% year on year.

Petrochemical prices for most of the major products continued to track downward in the three large consuming regions – northeast Asia, northwest Europe and the US.

The index shows that petrochemical prices thus far in 2015 have been on average lower than in the years since 2009 and the 2004 to 2008 period.

The northeast Asia sub index was down 6.1% from August as prices tracked lower over the course of the month. The northwest Europe sub index was down 8.7% month on month and the US sub index down 7.0% on the same basis.

The greatest fall in ethylene prices was in northeast Asia (-8.5%) followed by Europe (-7.9%) and the US (-3.4%).

Benzene prices in northwest Europe plunged 32.8% and were down 28.2% in the US. They were down 6.4% in northeast Asia. Prices in all regions were reacting to the earlier drop in the crude oil price.

The European September benzene contract price settled early in September down €260/tonne or $585/tonne in US dollar terms. This was the biggest monthly drop since November 2008 and the lowest settlement in euro terms since May 2009, ICIS reported at the time.

The September IPEX will be revised when the September contract price for US paraxylene, styrene and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) are agreed by market players.

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

The IPEX represents price movements in a basket of 12 petrochemicals over the course of each month. The petrochemicals are ethylene, propylene, butadiene, benzene, toluene, paraxylene (PX), styrene, polystyrene (PS), polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), methanol and polyvinyl chloride (PVC).

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

Download global and regional ICIS IPEX data here
View the full IPEX methodology