US melamine price increase likely after holiday

David Love

25-Nov-2015

HOUSTON (ICIS)–Participants in the US melamine market said on Wednesday that it was a little too early for a Q1 pricing announcement to be made, and that any such announcement would be made after the Thanksgiving Day holiday.

The lone US melamine producer, Cornerstone Chemical, is expected to announce a price increase for Q1 at that time – given the current supply constraints in the global market.

US domestic material remains tight, and some buyers of European material have been told that their allocations have been curtailed as a result of the various plant outages and planned maintenance taking place.

Domestic supplies have been tight all year as imports from Trinidad and China have been greatly reduced. Both countries have been involved in anti-dumping and countervailing duty investigations by the US Department of Commerce and the US International Trade Commission (ITC). The ITC will make its final determinations in the year-long investigations around 14 December.

Some European buyers turned their attention to the spot market, where they encountered higher prices as supplies were tight, since some major producers were not participating in the spot activity. Some distributors also said the amount of melamine for import was also limited.

One European distributor said there is a limit to the amount of material available from Qatar. Supply from Trinidad to Europe is reduced because of the natural gas curtailments. And European anti-dumping duties in place against China stopped imports from that country.

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