EPCA ’16: Europe nylon 6 growth of around 3% expected in 2017

BUDAPEST (ICIS)–European nylon 6 demand growth of 3% is expected in 2017, according to buyers and sellers on Monday.

Growth was expected to be driven by the downstream engineering plastics industry, sources added.

Growth of 3% is in line with the long-term average yearly market expansion and has been predominantly driven by light weighting of automobiles.

New emissions legislation on European automobiles comes into force from 2020, which may drive further market growth.

“Automotive is one of the growth areas, at least in Europe… [the] auto [industry] has a tendency to go for lightweight. In the end, for polyamide it helps,” a nylon chain producer said.

Nevertheless, the nylon market remains structurally oversupplied.

Nylon demand from the downstream carpet sector is expected to remain broadly at parity with 2016, according to market estimates.

The automotive industry is a major global consumer of petrochemicals which contributes more than a third of the raw material costs of an average vehicle. ICIS tracks the movement of petrochemical raw material costs in auto production both globally and regionally with the weighted ICIS Basket of Automotive Petrochemicals (IBAP).

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