Europe top stories: weekly summary

LONDON (ICIS)–Here are some of the top stories from ICIS Europe for the week ended 24 May.

Brenntag CEO says Europe must play to its strengths
Europe’s chemical sector is seeing a wave of commodity production closures, which is likely to accelerate as the region is suffering from structurally higher energy costs and depressed margins since it lost access to cheap Russian gas.

Europe epoxy sentiment stable, Asia imports may face EU antidumping claim
Europe epoxy resins prices have been mainly agreed with rollovers for May so far, in spite of a drop in feedstock costs this month. Speculation is also growing over EU anti-dumping claims against Asian imports.

Europe naphtha and gasoline prices firm on improved liquidity, summer optimism
Liquidity in Europe’s naphtha and gasoline markets improved in the week to 17 May as stable-to-soft prices encouraged buying appetite, just as the market is gearing up for an uptick in demand ahead of the summer holidays.

Europe PE, PP contract prices down beyond monomer for May
Europe’s polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) freely negotiated prices for May are down, with variance by grade