Engineering Thermoplastics April 2015: Price slide comes to a halt / Some products see a turnaround / Benzene derivatives especially start to trend up / General upswing expected to gain more momentum in May

摘要

The price erosion that beset many European engineering thermoplastics in the first few months of the year came to a halt in April, and in some cases the trend even turned around. The commodity-related ABS was hit broadside by the turbulent rises across the styrene chain, while the impact on PP compounds was relatively modest thanks to the existence of numerous contracts tied to the cost of feedstock propylene. The feedstock rises also impacted benzene derivatives PC and PA 6 in April. The latter's increases in fact contributed to the stabilisation of PA 6.6 notations. PBT notations firmed as the price plunge some players had hoped for failed to materialise. POM prices, by contrast, remained largely stable since the euro's weakness deterred the arrival of imports, which would have served to stir things up a bit. In the case of PMMA, minor corrections were made to the price increases that stemmed from the MMA bottleneck experienced at the beginning of the year.