chemical Prices

Crude oil experienced a sharp fall during Asian trading with the ICE Brent Futures dropping by close to 5% owing to heightened concerns of oversupply during the first quarter of 2022. The rise in the supply is expected to be triggered by US-led inventory release plans by the leading consumers. Another reason for price fall is the bearish demand fundamentals which are expected to develop owing to the new coronavirus variant related to the fourth wave of the pandemic. In a joint effort, several countries including the US, China, India, South Korea, Japan, and the UK have agreed to release more Crude Oil from their strategic reserves in order to cap the rising prices of Crude Oil . Crude oil is a hydrocarbon-rich liquid fuel residing in deep reservoirs under the Earth’s crust which is collected using the drilling process and refined to form extremely important fuels like gasoline, diesel, heating oil, etc., which are used in powering transport, generating electricity, and heating purposes...

The world’s leading petrochemical player, Royal Dutch Shell, had earlier this year manifested its intentions of retracting its oil and refinery portfolio and foray into renewables and green energy business to support the quick-pacing low carbon energy demands. As a step forward to its aim, the company has cut down the capacity of its crude processing unit at the Singapore hub to half and also restricted its fuel exports. Shell, on its path to sustainable energy solutions, has begun testing bio-based feedstocks like pyrolysis oil and naphtha at the cracker in Pulau Bukom facility to produce low-carbon olefins for supporting the downstream sectors in Asia. Nevertheless, the facility will continue to remain active in the production of naphtha for the company’s existing ethylene units. As part of its revamp strategy, Shell, in 2023, will proceed to build its first pyrolysis oil upgrader that will enable the production of 50,000 tonnes per year of treated pyrolysis oil to feed its 800,000 t...

  The prices of Polyolefin Elastomer (POE) have been rising in the USA for the past three months. The galloping streak is expected to continue during the last week of the current month also. The prices were assessed at USD 2895 per tonne for the POE Injection Molding grade and USD 2550 per tonne for the POE Extrusion Molding grade in the month of August. The prices remained quite stable in the month of September with the prices rising a little bit in the month of October at USD 3040 per tonne for Injection Molding grade and USD 2660 per tonne for the Extrusion Molding grade. The current prices in the third week of November are USD 3160 per tonne and USD 2750 per tonne respectively for the Injection Molding and Extrusion Molding grade. The prices have been rising due to rising feedstock prices in the USA and as the POE is used as a substitute in place of EPDM, EPR, etc., its demand has also been rising in the USA in the construction and automotive sectors. With the rising feedstock...

The Europe to Asia naphtha loadings, which had been falling continuously since the third quarter of 2021 despite strong demand fundamentals in the Asian countries, reached a year’s low in October quoting 1.195 million tons, after registering a decrease of 60% from the naphtha export volumes in June. The prolonged low outflow of naphtha from Europe has been propelled by robust domestic demand amid market tightness that has been haunting the European countries since the second quarter of 2021 originating due to low domestic production in the pandemic period and reduced imports from the USA which was getting higher returns from Asia in comparison to Europe. The market tightness got further exacerbated with the rebounding strong demand by the end-user industries amid the globally rising crude oil prices . The scarcity in supplies has led to the diversion of a majority of Asia-going Naphtha cargoes to Northwest Europe where the offtakes have been high despite low margins due to costly feeds...

The prices of Polystyrene have been falling in the USA since the month of June with mild fluctuations. The price of polystyrene was at around USD 2965 per tonne at the starting of the month of June, the prices fell to USD 2745 per tonne at the starting of the month of July. August prices further fell to a low of USD 2550 per tonne. The prices have continued to fall since then and the prices for the month of October were USD 2470 per tonne which have fallen to USD 2440 per tonne in November last week. The reason for a continuous price decline is that the demand has been stagnant with the rising competition from materials including acrylonitrile butadiene styrene and polycarbonate. Another reason for the declining prices is the decreasing prices of feedstock styrene and benzene.  The demand has been stagnant due to declining demand from the packaging sector which has seen demand fall as online orders for packaged products have been decreasing after the easing of coronavirus-related ...

The prices of Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) are expected to fall in the USA owing to weaker prices of styrene monomer and weak downstream demand. The prices of ABS experienced rise last month with the prices being USD 3050 per tonne in October rising to USD 3060 per tonne in November's first week. The prices were rising due to supply constraints of acrylonitrile amid strong demand. The prices of styrene monomer have been declining in the US owing to the ease in the supply and higher inventory levels. This decline in feedstock price has affected the prices of ABS plastic which majorly used styrene as a feedstock. ABS is an opaque engineering thermoplastic formed by the copolymerization of Acrylonitrile, Butadiene, and Styrene typically used for injection molding applications. Usually, it is composed of half the amount of Styrene with the remaining balance divided between Acrylonitrile and Butadiene. ABS possesses low production cost, excellent toughness, temperature stabilit...

  Torrential rainstorms, that have been battering across Canada’s western province of British Columbia since Monday, have triggered mudslides and inundated roads causing the release of evacuation orders for the entire city of Merritt and leading to the shutdown of Canada’s sole crude oil export pipeline , Trans Mountain, which extends to the USA. The government-owned Trans Mountain pipeline carries 300,000 barrels per day of crude oil and refined products from Alberta to the Pacific Coast. Further developments on a proposed expansion of the pipeline have also been shelved for the time being. The pipeline had been accountable for delivering light oil to almost two-thirds volume of the total export to the US oil refineries in the first half of 2021. Crude oil, which is extracted by drilling of underground reservoirs, is a hydrocarbon-rich liquid that is transported to refineries where it is cracked in a hot furnace, further processed, and transformed into fuels like gasoline, diesel,...

The prices of Purified Terephthalic Acid (PTA) which fell last week are expected to rebound this upcoming week with one of the major suppliers of PTA raising the prices for the product. The prices were following an upwards trajectory for three to four weeks prior to the last week which experienced a slight fall in the prices. The prices were INR 88340 per tonne on November 5 which was higher as compared to the prices in September, the prices slightly fell to INR 87220 per tonne on November 12. The prices are expected to rebound again and maintain an upward trend. The price rise is triggered by a supply shortage in China and a price hike by Reliance Industries Limited which is one of the major suppliers of MEG in India. Purified Terephthalic Acid is widely utilized as a feedstock for high-performance plastics like Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) Polybutylene Terephthalate (PBT) and others. It also finds huge consumption in the global polyester industry due to its high resistance to che...

The prices of Styrene Monomer in Asia declined on Thursday on the back of weaker upstream energy and benzene prices. The price fall was further bolstered by bearish regional demand fundamentals. The FOB South Korea prices were assessed at USD 1200 per tonne which was a drop of USD 15 per tonne from Wednesday levels. Similarly, CFR China prices were assessed lower at USD 1220 per tonne falling around USD 15 per tonne from the Wednesday prices. Moreover, the upstream Benzene prices were assessed down at around USD 965 per tonne which showed a decline of USD 20 per tonne from the Wednesday prices. On the supply side, the supply has been easing in China with the Zhejiang Petroleum and Chemical recently bringing its number 1 Styrene Monomer plant online following a maintenance turnaround. The plant was shut in mid-October. The plant is located in Zhejiang, China, and has a production capacity of 600 Kilotons per year. Similarly, the number 2 Styrene Monomer plant has a production capacity o...

Polypropylene prices have been rising in China since mid-October which were stable for three months before October. The prices have been firming up due to supply squeeze and rising fears of production cuts on account of electricity shortages. The condition of prices is further exacerbated due to a spurt in demand from the local consumer industries following their return from the holidays in the first week of October. The price on October 8 was $1236 per tonne which rose by almost 9% to $1345 per tonne in mid-October. The prices in November have also been high with the prices hovering around the $1340 mark in the first week of November. The prices of the feedstock Propylene also rose by almost 15% during the month of October. This was also among the major reasons for the price hike. The prices are expected to settle down in the long run with the ExxonMobil planning to build a new petrochemical complex with a nameplate capacity of 1.6 million tonnes of polypropylene. As the effect of th...

 Hengli Petrochemical Co. Ltd. and Asia’s largest oil and natural gas producer as well as the subsidiary of China’s state-owned CNPC, PetroChina Co. Ltd. get possession of 60% of the total reserve oil offered in the first state auction held on September 24.  A total of 4.43 million barrels of crude oil were sold to these two petrochemical majors in the first phase of the auction conducted by the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration, which lasted only an hour. PetroChina bought a cargo each of 951,137 barrels of Qatar Marine and 1.1 million barrels of U.K. Forties crude that was priced at USD 65 per barrel. On the other hand, Hengli procured a cargo of 1.79 million barrels of Oman at USD 65 per barrel and another cargo of 592,031 barrels of Upper Zakum crude at a price of USD 70.50 per barrel. However, no bids were received for the sale of 2.95 million barrels of Murban crude, which is the largest chunk of the offered reserves.  Crude oil is an unrefined pet...