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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