MOSCOW (MRC) -Russia's consumption of bottle polycarbonate (PC) were 2,500 tonnes in January-November 2014, down 19% in the same period last year, according to MRC DataScope report.
As this segment of the PC market is totally dependent on imports, that is why domestic bottle PC prices have been growing on line of the rouble devaluation. At the same time, because of the strengthening of the dollar, prices for European bottle PC have been lower than Asian material. The most popular European producers in Russia are Sabic Innovative Plastics (11% from the total imports) and Styron (11%). However, most of the imported volume occurred for Asian producers: Samyang Corporation (29%), LG Chem (25%), Mitsubishi Engineering-Plastics Corp (21%).
Russian traders reported a significant decline in consumer interest in bottle PC because of the sharp rising prices, which cut their margins.
Some of they said that the reduction of production bottles number, along with an increase in their volume ( from 10 liters to 20 liters or more).
Also, one of the ways to reduce costs is to add a recycled feedstock material in the production, or switching to a recycled PC, which worsens the quality of products.
Buyers of bottles are not willing to accept price rise. In this case, in order to reduce costs, they often use the bottle more than once, delaying or reducing the purchase of new ones. For this reason, the consumption of bottle PC is expected to drop next year further. Due to the deterioration of the macroeconomic situation in the country traders are going to make discounts to buyers, taking the currency risk or the sharing it with clients.
However, these measures still can not have a significant impact on demand. Foreign producers of bottled PC avoid to increase prices for Russia significantly to not lose customers.
MRC