Butadiene long into 2015, but supply to tighten on crude C4s

摘要

The market for butadiene has been somewhat long, and prices have fallen for most of this year amid weak worldwide demand for synthetic rubber. Longer-term, however, the trend is toward increasing tightness as demand recovers and lighter cracker feedslates cut into the production of crude C4s. Much of the weakness in butadiene can be traced to the tire market. About half of all butadiene production ends up in tires by way of synthetic rubber, and world demand for tires is still about 10% short of its prerecession high.