US spot ethylene prices fell nearly 6 cents/lb week on week in what some sources called a correction for an overreaction by the market to a cracker outage at the end of March. Spot ethylene was assessed Friday at 68.75-69.25 cents/lb, up 1.25 cents/lb on the day, amid news of production issues at two steam crackers. After hitting record-high spot assessments of 75 cents/lb March 30 and into the first week of April — and trading as high as 75.125 cents/lb for April last week — spot ethylene assessments dropped this week to as low as 68 cents/lb after trading at that level multiple times for April on the Williams pipeline system. The downward movement stemmed from producer Williams restarting its Geismar, Louisiana, cracker after a week-long outage and force majeure declaration, and that same outage helped to lift prices up to end March, sources said.
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