Europe top stories: weekly summary

LONDON (ICIS)–Here are some of the top stories from ICIS Europe for the week ended 16 October.

Europe PP demand remains application driven, tough times ahead
Polypropylene (PP) demand in Europe has beaten expectations in recent weeks, and some applications have fared better than expected, but there is still a lot of uncertainty over the future, and not all converters report good volumes.

Cost hikes, shortages create headaches for Europe PU industries
Supply disruptions rocked the Europe polyurethane (PU) market this week, where flexible and rigid foam producers have grappled with shortages of isocyanates and polyols feedstock, strong demand and sharp increases in pricing for October.

EU’s new, stricter regulation ‘missed opportunity’ to make chems part of Green Deal – Cefic
The European Commission’s new Chemical Strategy for Sustainability is a missed opportunity for policymakers to bring the chemicals industry into the Green Deal implementation, according to trade group Cefic.

Petchems, industry to become crude’s saviours as electrification booms while recycling uptake poor – IEA
The pandemic has hastened the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) outlook for the demise of crude oil as a motor fuel although it forecasts reasonable demand growth from the petrochemicals industry which looks set to continue to enjoy cheap feedstocks, a lack of competing material and a failure by the world to adopt recycling seriously.

European cracker margins squeezed by higher feedstock costs
Margins at European crackers fell week on week, squeezed by higher feedstock costs, ICIS margin analysis showed on Monday.