C-MACC Perspectives No 26
August Price Forecast Update
- We expect the US market for ethylene and derivatives to follow the same pattern as Asia, with a delayed peak and subsequent decline. The Asia strength pulled up the US market, but its subsequent slide has been met with short lived production outages in the US, prolonging the US rise. 4Q could be quite different.
- We continue to adopt a more negative forward economic view than those circulated by the widely recognized institutions during 2Q. We would expect updates reflecting the aggressive and persistent nature of COVID and its impact on both mobility and buying habits.
- New ethylene and derivative capacity is starting up in China during this quarter and it is likely to meet markets that do not need it yet. The analysis focuses on the monomers and it is possible that more competitive polymer markets will have a great impact on integrated profitability than moves in ethylene and propylene
See PDF below for all charts and tables