INTERACTIVE: Drop in olefins and aromatics prices in US and Asia drive global IPEX down 6.5%
Nigel Davis
05-Dec-2018
LONDON (ICIS)–Steep prices falls for the major olefins and aromatics in northeast Asia, the US and northwest Europe, largely crude-related, pushed the Global ICIS Petrochemical Index (IPEX) for November lower, the data showed on Wednesday.
Petrochemical and polymer prices were down across the board, apart from methanol in the US which was up 4% from October on a $/gal basis.
Lower regional IPEXs pushed the Global IPEX down 6.50%.
Contract prices from a number of the commodities used to generate the index either rolled over for were unsettled for the month.
Rolling over were polystyrene (PS) in the US, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in the US and PVC in northwest Europe. Unsettled were ethylene in the US, styrene in the US, paraxylene (PX) in northeast Asia and styrene in northeast Asia.
Crude oil prices fell steeply this year from 4 October, helping to push naphtha costs lower and putting pressure on prices downstream.
IPEX | IPEX Value | October to November change |
Global | 258.29 | -6.50% |
US | 259.33 | -6.36% |
Northwest Europe | 301.21 | -5.04% |
Northeast Asia | 240.59 | -7.29% |
Major price rises in November | ||
Commodity | Region | Month on month rise |
Methanol | US | 4.0% |
Major price falls in November | ||
Commodity | Region | Month on month fall |
Toluene | US | 17.2% |
Propylene | Northeast Asia | 16.8% |
Propylene | US | 16.7% |
Global and regional IPEX data are available
here
The
ICIS Petrochemical Index methodology is
available here
The ICIS petrochemical index tracks the movement of 12 major petrochemicals and polymers: ethylene, propylene, butadiene, benzene, toluene, paraxylene (PX), polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), styrene, polystyrene (PS), methanol and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) with the regional indexes weighted by capacity.
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