Europe packaging sentiment weighed down by polyolefins CMCI shows

LONDON (ICIS)–European chemical markets used for packaging are bearish on profitability, despite being positive on the majority of other indicators, analysis of the May ICIS Chemical Market Confidence Index (CMCI) showed on Friday.

The negativity over profitability is largely the result of huge bearishness on margins in polyolefins markets. Removing polyolefins from the packaging CMCI would move all indicators into positive territory.

Polyolefins players’ negativity over profitability may be connected to US ethane and associated polyolefins capacity coming onstream this year leading to fears of increased overseas competition.

The packaging CMCI includes, bisphenol A (BPA), polycarbonate (PC), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polystyrene (PS), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), paraffin wax (P-Wax) and recycled polyethylene terephthalate (R-PET).

The newly established ICIS Europe CMCI aggregates sentiment from hundreds of petrochemical market players actively involved in price negotiations across more than 60 different markets.

The Europe CMCI runs from +100, to -100, with zero on each index representing neutral, or uncertain conditions, a negative score indicating bearish expectations and a positive score representing bullish expectations. The indexes also gather sentiment on the comparison between the current situation and the situation across the past 12 months to give a complete picture of current market conditions and confidence. The information is gathered in the third week of each month.  A full methodology is available on request.

For more details on the overall Europe CMCI data, click here