Polymer Global Analysis
Resin To Riches: Weekly Plastic Market Insights
- General Thoughts: Excluding a significant run-up in crude oil prices or unforeseen events causing global supply balances to tighten, it isn’t easy to paint a broadly bullish picture of polymer prices for 2025 relative to 2024.
- Polyethylene (PE): Global spot PE prices rose last week, with LLDPE reflecting more price strength globally during the past 30 days than HDPE or LDPE – US spot PE prices broadly reflect discounts to Europe and Asia prices.
- Polypropylene (PP): US spot PP prices have trended lower relative to spot polymer-grade propylene during the past thirty days, and we discuss recent movements in spot PP and PGP in Europe and Asia since the start of 2025.
- Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC): Global spot PVC markets remain generally well supplied, and we discuss spot market developments in export regions relative to those where protectionist import policies have been implemented.
- Other Sector Developments: We highlight Brent crude oil and US natural gas price levels and their YTD trends in 2025 YTD relative to 2024, which at the feedstock level imply lower global polymer prices and US margins YoY.
Exhibit 1 – Chart of the Day: Western integrated polyethylene (PE) margins reflect support WoW relative to Asia.
Source: Bloomberg, C-MACC Analysis, January 2025
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