In November, Europe’s PVC producers initially planned to keep the cost reduction in the ethylene component for themselves by agreeing a rollover, thus enabling them to improve their margins somewhat. Despite a relatively balanced market with demand running at the normal level, they ultimately failed to achieve this, however.
All those involved thus agreed on the usual scenario of passing on 50 per cent of the reduction in the ethylene reference. This then traversed the added value stages of the material chain as all other impulses remained too weak.
The pro-rata ethylene costs rose €5/t ($5.5).