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PP prices leap in February

North American polypropylene resin prices jumped 4 cents per pound in February, as tightness in supplies of polymer-grade propylene (PGP) monomer sent the market up.

Regional PP prices had been up 3 cents in January. Prices now have been up in five of the last six months, with the exception of flat pricing in December.

Earlier in the year, Enterprise Products briefly shut down a PDH unit making PGP in Baytown, Texas. Ineos Olefins & Polyolefins also placed force majeure supply limits on PP resin made at its Chocolate Bayou plant in Alvin, Texas, because of mechanical issues. That site has annual production capacity of about 1 billion pounds of PP. Ineos also operates almost 1 billion pounds of propylene capacity there.

Recent upswings in PP pricing are at odds with demand for the material, which has been in decline.

Officials with materials firm LyondellBasell in Houston previously said financial results for the olefins and polyolefins Americas unit were down 25 percent in the fourth quarter of 2023 vs. the previous quarter. They added the decline largely was from compression in PP spreads as polymer price increases lagged higher monomer costs.

PP supplier Blue Clover of New York said in a research report that, based on market dynamics, it expects PGP prices to drop 12-15 cents per pound between March and May. If that takes place, it most likely would lead PP resin prices to decline as well.

In the PP market, Blue Clover said that some grades of widespec homopolymer PP are selling at a discount to the contract PGP price because supply/demand dynamics are not strong enough for the product to trade at a premium to contract PGP.

They added that recent limited availability of high-end and low-end grades of copolymer PP "leads us … to wonder if PP producers have lowered operating rates even further to reduce the impact of high feedstock pricing."

* Source : https://www.plasticsnews.com/resin-pricing/pp-resin-prices-jump-february

* Edit : HANDLER