Americas top stories: weekly summary

HOUSTON (ICIS)–Here are the top stories from ICIS News from the week ended 15 November.

APLA ’19: Brazil’s Unigel sees challenges ahead for PS markets
Unigel, one of two polystyrene producers in Brazil, sees challenges ahead despite increased demand over the previous year.

APLA ’19: Latin American aromatics markets likely to face challenges in 2020
Aromatics markets in Latin America are facing challenging economic conditions and this is likely to continue into the next year, market participants commented on Monday on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the Latin American Petrochemical Association (APLA).

LyondellBasell’s US PO/TBA plant 20% complete
LyondellBasell’s new propylene oxide (PO) and tertiary butyl alcohol (TBA) plant in the US Gulf Coast has surpassed 20% completion, with work shifting to vertical assembly, the chemicals major announced on Monday.

Petchems demand for crude oil set to boom despite rising recycling rates – IEA
Global recycling rates are set to boom in coming decades but demand for crude oil from the petrochemicals industry is set to continue rising as emerging economies urbanise, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Wednesday.

INSIGHT: Current chems recycling not enough to make significant dent in oil demand – IEA
Chemicals recycling technologies that would pave the way for petrochemicals to avoid crude oil as feedstock are still not sufficient to drag down overall demand in coming decades, according to the International Energy Agency’s petrochemicals analyst.

LatAm needs more competitive feedstocks as EU-Mercosur trade deal approaches
Latin America must capitalise on its potential competitive advantage in energy and petrochemical feedstocks, especially as the Mercosur countries open up their economies with an EU trade deal.

US to issue duties on acetone imports from Spain, Singapore
The US will issue duties on imports of acetone from Spain and Singapore following a determination by a US agency on Thursday that the domestic industry is injured by these imports.

US acetone remains lengthy on low demand, downstream outages
US acetone supply remains lengthy as a downstream outage and lacklustre demand offsets lower production and lower imports.