June IPEX up on stronger crude, recovering volumes

LONDON (ICIS)–Petrochemical prices rebounded in June on the back of the stronger crude oil market and recovering volume demand, pushing the monthly IPEX higher.

There were significant gains for ethylene in northeast Asia over the month, while aromatics contract prices in Europe for June recovered following their crash earlier in the year.

Despite the month-on-month gains for some of the major petrochemicals and plastics, the regional and global ICIS petrochemical index values remained depressed and around 30% lower year on year.

	IPEX Value	May to June change
Global	159.15	+7.9%
US	149.80	+4.19%
Northwest Europe	200.19	+8.38%
Northeast Asia	147.57	+9.69%
Major price rises in June
Commodity	Region	Month on month rise
Ethylene	Northeast Asia	44.6%
Benzene	Northwest Europe	33.2%
Toluene	Northwest Europe	31.4%
Major price falls in June
Commodity	Region	Month on month fall
Polyethylene	Northwest Europe	-10.0%
Methanol	US	-8.0%
Butadiene	US	-5.0%

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.

IPEX values are subject to change restrospectively as contract prices are agreed.  Yet to be settled for June is the Asia Pacific paraxylene contract price. The June butadiene contract reference price was settled at a rollover.