Daily Chemical Reactions

The Sultans Of Swing – Cost Curve Steepening Stalls, More Production Waits Down The Hall Key Points:
July 10, 2020
Commodities Mentioned:
Brent Crude, Naphtha, Natural Gas, Ethane, Ethylene, Propylene, Polyethylene, Polypropylene, Polyvinyl Chloride, Caustic Soda, Glycerine
Companies Mentioned:
Formosa Plastics, Sasol, LyondellBasell, Dow, CP Chem, Ineos, ExxonMobil, Westlake, Braskem, Olin, Braskem, BASF, Celanese, Covestro, EMS-Chemie

Daily Chemical Reaction

 

The Sultans Of Swing – Cost Curve Steepening Stalls, More Production Waits Down The Hall

Key Points:

  • The global petrochemical cost curve steepening that began in April/early May 2020 has come to a grinding halt – a headwind for further price hikes.
  • We discuss China polymer price strength WoW, US LDPE start-ups set for 2H20 and our call for USGC spot ethylene support relative to contract levels.
  • Other items of note today target a few producer reports announcing “better-than-expected” 2Q20 results that we equate in some cases to watching someone dunk on an 8 foot (instead of a 10 foot) basketball goal (indeed, we find business conditions far from good/back to normal globally). We also add in commentary on Braskem chlor-alkali issues, varying upstream/feedstock trends, PDH and PP industry items of note, and US rail traffic trends.

See PDF below for all charts 

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