Rock The Boat – Global Supply Chain Issues Remain Elevated, Chemical Producer Strategic Shifts Emerge

Daily Chemical Reaction

Rock The Boat – Global Supply Chain Issues Remain Elevated, Chemical Producer Strategic Shifts Emerge

Key Points:

• Global supply chains remain imbalanced and support abnormally high chemical prices in the US relative to Asia. In our view, the Westlake initiative to push its portfolio more toward specialties is timely in light of this setting.    
• We highlight Westlake, ExxonMobil, Indorama, Aramco, & Formosa news, flag multiple price hike efforts, & note global production update items.  
• USGC spot ethylene, benzene, and polymer-grade propylene (PGP) values hold up WoW. However, we think PGP now reflects the most downside risk.  
• We discuss an increased push to broaden climate-friendly initiatives from traditional channels and flag several circular economy initiative updates.
• The Freightos China-to-US freight rate index and the Baltic Exchange Freight Rate Index rise WOW, and both indexes reflect five-year highs.
• We note numerous other pertinent chemical sector items in this report.

See PDF below for all charts, tables and diagrams