Supply greatly exceeds demand in Asian PVC market

SINGAPORE (ICIS news) -- A likelihood of oversupply and softening demand growth in the key China market has unleashed anxiety among chlor-alkali players in Asia, ahead of the 14th Asian Chlor-alkali Conference, which starts on Thursday in Shanghai, China.

However, strong performance of the Indian PVC market has provided a cause for cheer, they said. China's consumption of PVC was expected to hit 10.6m tonnes/year in 2010.

Demand growth for PVC in China was expected to slow further to 7.5% in 2011, amid a slowing down of the construction sector due to the government's measures to cool the economy.

Another reason to cheer is a decline in feedstock ethylene costs, which would improve stand-alone PVC producers' margins. Ethylene spot prices in northeast Asia were hovering at an eight-month low of $900-950/tonne (┬729-770/tonne) CFR (cost and freight) NE (north east) Asia last week, according to data from ICIS.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Russian companies continue to augment PVC imports into the domestic market. Total resin supplies from international markets exceeded 27 kt - according to MRC Price reports.

Last month single big PVC converters started actively purchasing resin in international markets, in particular, in North America and Europe. Partly, cooperation with international markets was caused by lower prices than the ones from Russian producers. American resin suppliers have dropped PVC prices for June to the level USD 970-990/mt, CFR Saint-Petersburg, under the pressure of falling ethylene prices in North America. Decreasing Euro/Dollar exchange rate and low prices have also caused the attractiveness of European resin for the Russian market. June PVC price level from Europe is in the range of EUR 750 - 830/mt, FCA.

Despite the delays in terms of PVC supply from China, total acetylene PVC imports exceeded 17 kt in May. Resin suppliers from North-Eastern Asia lowered the prices for June to the level USD 1.010 - 1.050/mt, CFR Saint-Petersburg, under the pressure of low prices for North-American PVC and low demand in China. At the same time, Chinese acetylene PVC suppliers, vice versa, raised resin prices in June on average USD 30-40/mt comparing with May.

MRC

For more detailed information about PVC market in Russia please refer to MRC Price reports.

(prw) -- Polyolefins giant LyondellBasell says that the caps and closures market will be one of the key focus sectors for its new Hostalen ACP HDPE production unit, currently under construction at its Munchsmunster site in Germany.

The 250,000tpa unit will begin manufacturing multi-modal HDPE resin grades using LyondellBasell's Advanced Cascade Process (ACP), for the closure, pipe and blow moulding industry in the second half of this year.

The ACP process is claimed to allow production of HDPE resins with tailor-made molecular weight distributions and co-monomer content, resulting in optimum stiffness/toughness balance, high ESCR and improved ease of processing.

MRCMRC Reference

LyondellBasell. The share in the Russian market in 2008:
PE - 1.4% (including HDPE - 2.5%, LDPE - 0.3%);
PP - 4.1% (including block-copolymers - 9.5%).

Annual sales growth in Russia, during the recent 5 years:
PE - 27%;
PP - 88%.

The leader in the following polymers processing technologies:

pipe extrusion;

film extrusion;

injection molding.

(plastemart) -- Formosa Petrochemical Corp plans to augment its crude oil processing capacity from 540,000 bpd to 593,000 bpd in three years. Government approval is being sought to further increase capacity to 720,000 bpd. Production capacity will be expanded to boost competitiveness, in a recovering economy. Formosa operates three crackers that can process naphtha or liquefied petroleum gas into ethylene and propylene, chemicals found in plastics and polyester fabrics. Combined capacity at the three crackers totals 2.94 mln tpa of ethylene.

MRCMRC Reference

Formosa

The share in the Russian market in 2008:
PVC-S - 3.0%;

PP - 0.4%.

Annual growth sales in Russia :
PVC - 79 % (over the last year) ;

PP - 272 % (over the last 3 years).

Supply by processing technologies:
profile extrusion

film extrusion

(EC) -- After having recently acquired the powder coatings business of Dow, AkzoNobel plans to restructure the production activities in Germany. The company intends to shut down the powder coatings plant in Bensheim/Germany by end of this year. The acquired business of Dow operates a powder coatings facility in Arnsberg/Germany. The coatings producer plans to concentrate its activities on this site in the future. From the Bensheim-site the coatings producer supplied its products for decorative applications to the markets in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Scandinavia and the Baltic states.

MRC