Daily Chemical Reactions

Running On Empty (Maybe) – Indicators Point To Production Revival Despite Low Demand Visibility
November 3, 2020
Commodities Mentioned:
Plastics (PVC, PP, PE, etc.), Ethylene, Chlor-Alkali, Isopropanol, Isocyanates, Butadiene, Paraxylene, Styrene, Benzene, Polybutylene Terephthalate (PBT)
Companies Mentioned:
Aramco, Avient, Braskem, DSM, Eastman Chemical, Evonik, ExxonMobil, FUCHS Petrolub, Harima Chemicals, Kuraray, LyondellBasell, Marathon, Mitsubishi Gas Chemical, Momentive, Orion Engineered Carbons, PQ Group, Reliance, Sasol, Sekisui, Shell, Solvay, Sun Chemical, Teijin, Toray Industries, Tosoh, Trinseo, Umicore, Univation, Westlake, Olin

Daily Chemical Reaction

 

Running On Empty (Maybe) – Indicators Point To Production Revival Despite Low Demand Visibility

 

Key Points:

  • Chemical sector 2H20 business update and downstream news highlights leaner supply chains in a period when per-unit profit supports greater production in most product chains – though most expectations imply supply lagging or moving higher with demand, the risk of an overreaction is high.
  • We note numerous corporate items (e.g. Aramco, Avient, DSM, Evonik, Fuchs Petrolub and Westlake updates; Kuraray, OQ Chemical and other price hike news; global outage, Lake Charles restart & expansion news, etc.)
  • Other items mentioned range from rising Asia spot styrene values relative to benzene and US levels (Ex. #3), to US Natural Gas near energy equivalent parity with USGC ethane (Ex. #2), to Walmart rejecting robot scanners.

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