Europe building block chems players bullish on orders, profitability – CMCI

LONDON (ICIS)–European building block chemicals players are confident about the outlook for profitability, orders and the business environment over the next year, analysis of the July ICIS Europe Chemical Markets Confidence Index (CMCI) showed Wednesday.

Confidence for building block chemicals players – including aromatics, olefins and oil products – in business conditions at present compared to the past 12 months was weaker, but only marginally, compared to improvements to the outlook for order book volumes, profitability and market environment over the next year.

The bullish outlook came despite uncertainty clouding the EU economy on the UK’s 23 June vote to break away from the trading bloc.

July saw the first full CMCI conducted since the UK’s vote to leave the EU, with the June data collected the week of the vote, making it impossible to tell the impact until now.

The  “”>overall Europe CMCI points to a potential shift to a seller’s market.   

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