Standard thermoplastics in February: Buyers' resistance and abundance of special offers stop hefty price rises for polyolefins / Slight increase with PVC / PS and EPS climb significantly / PP in oversupply / EPS tight

摘要

The majority of western European standard thermoplastics buyers had to dig deeper into their pockets again in February. Notations for polyolefins rose by up to EUR 25/t, with tight EVA leading the list. The second largest hikes were seen for LLDPE grades and for the blow moulding and injection moulding grades of HDPE, which all rose by EUR 10/t across the board. LDPE and HDPE film grades followed close behind. PP just about managed to stay at last month's level despite tending increasingly towards oversupply. Producers of PVC squeezed out a further - albeit small - rise of EUR S/t, taking another tiny step on the way to factoring in the monomer increase. PS added only EUR 20/t and its sellers thus fell well short of plans to pass on the monomer mark-up in February. In contrast, suppliers of the more balanced EPS managed to recoup the full rise in the styrene monomer price, but were still a long way off the targeted margin improvement.