US ethylene margins up for four straight weeks

HOUSTON (ICIS)–US spot margins for ethane-based ethylene rose by 9.0% in the week ended 26 August, marking the fourth consecutive week of increases as spot prices continued to surge, the ICIS margin report showed on Tuesday.

Average spot prices for front-month ethylene spiked by another 8.2% week on week, as supply remained tight on ongoing cracker turnarounds, several unexpected outages and declining inventories.

Higher spot ethylene spot prices, combined with the 2.4% gain in cracker co-product credits, outweighed the 4.3% increase in feedstock ethane costs.

The increase in feedstock ethane costs did impact ethane-based integrated contract ethylene margins, which fell by 1.5% week on week. Additionally, cracker co-product credits slipped by 0.5%.

August ethylene margin calculations were based on the July ethylene contract prices, pending the settlement of August contracts.

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