ICIS price assessments for butadiene (BD)/crude C4 are widely used by market players in contract and trade deals.
If you’re looking for a 360° perspective of the global BD/C4 markets, our short-to-long term solutions – from pricing data, breaking news and market analysis, to supply and demand forecasts – will power your decision-making process by bringing clarity through data, ensuring you are able to evaluate the industry from every angle.
Updated to Q1 2021
Asia
Supply rose during the quarter with several plants, including a 160,000 tonne/year unit in South Korea, returning to normal operations, after a prolonged outage in H2 2020.
Demand was mixed across Asia – down in China due to several unplanned outages at local downstream plants, but firm in other regional outlets where most rubber plants were ramping up operations to supply robust requirements from the automobile sector.
Europe
BD supply was better balanced through the first quarter. Unplanned cracker issues were resolved, but limited buying appetite and low prices from the export sector meant that BD extraction rates were sometimes tailored to suit. A huge supply disruption in the US coincided with Asia’s return after the Lunar New Year holiday and led to strong competition for spot volumes. A couple of BD unit turnarounds in March limited supply further.
Contractual, domestic demand was healthy throughout the first quarter. Derivative markets were held up by ongoing export demand, while domestically, the markets were fairly healthy with no signs of any problems stemming from issues in the auto sector. Spot demand picked up in mid-February as the US and Asia needed volumes.
US
BD supply declined dramatically as the US polar storm forced nearly all US production capacity offline in mid-February. TPC Group resumed production in Houston in the final days of the quarter, leaving Shell Deer Park as the only offline unit, representing about 7% of US capacity. Inventories were critically low in March with force majeures and sales allocations in place.
BD demand dropped alongside production because of the US polar storm. However, demand began to outpace available volumes in March because downstream SBR production restarted more quickly than BD extraction units. SBR producers put force majeures and sales allocations in place as they waited for BD production to ramp up.
Whether you are buying or selling, our short-to-long term solutions – from pricing data, breaking news and market analysis, to supply and demand forecasts – will power your decision-making process by bringing clarity through data and ensuring you are able to evaluate the global butadiene market from every angle.
Key trading prices and activities – Spot, contract and domestic prices. Offers, bids and transactions of butadiene and crude/C4
Price alerts and market updates: Shifts in prices, the latest news, market developments and changes in regulations and demand trends
Plant data: Production and capacity, plant maintenance and shutdowns
Feedstock: Prices and market updates for naphtha
Historical prices: Download and/or chart pricing from as far back as the start of ICIS coverage
Weekly market outlook: Overview and outlook for the overall regional butadiene market, including a brief commentary on the related regional markets
Supply and demand: Analysis of domestic and international supply and demand
Regional coverage: Asia-Pacific, China, Europe and the US
Asia-Pacific
Europe
US Gulf
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ICIS Supply and Demand Data Service offers end-to-end perspectives across the global butadiene supply chain. Gain quick access to data on import and export volumes, plant capacities, production updates, trade flows, companies and trade routes. With historical data from 1978 and forecast available up to 2040, this powerful data and analytics service from ICIS helps senior management, strategists, business planners, analysts and risk managers to:
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Butadiene is a colourless, non-corrosive liquefied gas with a mild aromatic or gasoline-like odour. It is slightly soluble in water, more soluble in methanol and ethanol, and soluble in most common organic solvents such as acetone, ether, benzene, and cyclohexane. It readily polymerises in the presence of sodium or oxygen.
Butadiene is used to produce synthetic rubbers and polymer resins, as well as a few chemical intermediates. The largest uses are styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) and polybutadiene rubber (BR), mostly used in tyres and automobiles.
The major source of butadiene is as a byproduct in the steam cracking of naphtha and gas oil to make ethylene and propylene. The butadiene is extracted from the C4 cracker stream using extractive distillation.
Other uses include acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) resins, styrene-butadiene latex and block copolymers, nitrile rubber, and adiponitrile (ADN)
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