Europe polyols initial Nov contracts flat, dynamics balanced

Pavle Popovic

15-Nov-2017

LONDON (ICIS)–Unchanged pricing has been agreed in early November contracts for Europe polyols in what sources on Wednesday say is a balanced market.

Rollovers were also agreed in October when the assessed price range remained at €1,700-1,785/tonne FD (free delivered) NWE (northwest Europe).

These balanced market conditions in November may be disrupted by supply difficulties at US supplier Dow Chemical.

Industry sources said that the firm had production issues in November at its Terneuzen, the Netherlands plant prior to a planned outage, but, they did not expect any long term effect from this.

Although, this was disagreed with by a buyer that said that difficulties at the 530,000 tonne/year plant could affect contract discussions for next year.

There were those that did say BASF’s recall of contaminated toluene di-isocyanate (TDI) did have an impact on the market.

The German supplier, in October, informed its customers that a grade of TDI produced at its 300,000 tonne/year Ludwigshafen plant in August and September may have had concentrations of dichlorobenzene significantly above its standard purity levels.

As TDI combines with polyols to produce flex foam, trends can transfer between these markets.

Some foam manufacturers did announce temporary halts in production following BASF’s news with a few polyols sources saying that this has had an effect on demand in their market in November.

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