Falling prices in Europe depress global IPEX for October

LONDON (ICIS)–A sharp fall in propylene, styrene and major polymer prices in northwest Europe helped depress the global ICIS petrochemical index (IPEX) for October, newly released data showed on Wednesday.

The northwest Europe index was down 7.0% in October, with the northeast Asia and US sub-indexes relatively flat. The global IPEX for October stood at 209.07, 1.9% lower than the revised September figure of 213.14.

Petrochemical prices have tracked much lower in all regions in the first month of the fourth quarter relative to the third quarter average. The global IPEX has reflected the price falls dropping around 10%. The comparable northwest Europe sub-index is down about 13%.

The global IPEX is down 26.6% year to date compared with the whole of 2014.

Propylene prices fell 13.7% in Europe in US dollar terms in October from September to $796/tonne. In October 2014 the monthly average propylene price in northwest Europe was close to double that, at $1,394/tonne.

The October 2015 monthly contract settlement had been agreed lower, with pressure on downstream monomer markets, apart from the polymer, having an impact on the price settlement.

Europe styrene prices were down 17.8% month to month in October in US dollar terms as the structurally high market adjusted. Polypropylene (PP) prices were down 8.1%. Polyethylene (PE) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) prices were also lower.

The northwest Europe sub-index was also depressed by 18.1% lower methanol prices for the month as the regional quarterly methanol contract price settled.

There was only marginal movement in the average $/€ exchange rate between September and October.

The global IPEX reflects price movements for a basket of 12 petrochemical products including the major olefins and polymers relative to a 1993 base of 100.

The current IPEX will be revised when US ethylene, styrene and PVC and Asian paraxylene (PX) and styrene contract prices settle for October.

*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, styrene, polystyrene (PS), polyethylene, polypropylene, methanol and polyvinyl chloride.

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 here