Europe polyolefins business conditions improve, profitability down – CMCI

LONDON (ICIS)–Sentiment in the European polyolefins sector was mixed for September, with business conditions improving but both long and short term profitability expectations falling, according to ICIS chemical markets confidence index (CMCI) data on Friday.

Expectations for business conditions saw a rise, putting them in positive territory for the first time since June, whilst short-term reports also rose but not enough to take them out of negative territory.

Order book volumes saw a short-term rise compared to the previous year, but expectations for the next 12 months were down.

Profitability has been variable since May, with both twelve-month expectation and short-term outlooks falling sharply in July, recovering in August and then returning to a similar situation in September.

However, profitability has nevertheless mostly remained in negative territory in both the short and long-term forecasts.

Much of the negativity in the index comes from the trading side of the market, with buyers and producers overall positive or neutral on four out of the six indexes and traders negative on five out of six indexes.

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