Europe benzene market one-year outlook cools down – August CMCI

LONDON (ICIS)–European benzene market participants felt more confident in August than in previous months about order volumes but prospects for profitability and business conditions in the coming 12 months remained subdued, analysis of the August ICIS Chemical Market Confidence Index showed on Tuesday.  

While market participants were confident about future business conditions, that sentiment faded in August.

All indicators remained above the 0 mark, but both business conditions and profitability expectations in the coming 12 months only managed to achieve scores of 7.4 points and 11.1 points, respectively.

European benzene chain sentiment
Last four months

The newly established ICIS Europe CMCI aggregates sentiment from hundreds of petrochemical market players actively involved in price negotiations across more than 60 different markets.

The Europe CMCI runs from +100, to -100, with zero on each index representing neutral, or uncertain conditions, a negative score indicating bearish expectations and a positive score representing bullish expectations. The indices also gather sentiment on the comparison between the current situation and the situation across the past 12 months to give a complete picture of current market conditions and confidence. The information is gathered in the third week of each month.  A full methodology is available on request.

For more details on the overall Europe CMCI data, click here