Home Blogs Chemicals and the Economy

Chemicals and the Economy

European propylene, butadiene, prices rise above ethylene

A remarkable thing happened this week in European olefin markets. Contract prices for butadiene and propylene were finalised for April/Q2 at higher levels than for ethylene. This has never happened before, in Europe or other regions. The chart, based on ICIS pricing data, shows how ethylene (blue line) has normally been the highest priced olefin. […]

Butadiene supply tightens as cracker feeds lighten

One of the key conclusions in our 2008 Study, ‘Feedstocks for Profit’, was that butadiene had the potential to go very tight in a Global Downturn Scenario. And as the chart above shows, prices are now rising sharply in the 3 major Regions. The rationale for the lack of supply is that the gas-based crackers […]

10 European crackers offline

My colleague Bob Townsend is well known to many in the chemical industry as an olefins expert. He has pointed out today’s most unusual situation in olefins. Normally, an unplanned outage by one or more crackers would cause major disruption. Yet today, 10 European crackers are down, for technical or other reasons, and many others […]

Jump to page: