Resin To Riches: Weekly Plastic Market Insights

Polymer Global Analysis

Resin To Riches: Weekly Plastic Market Insights

• General Thoughts: Surging feedstock costs are compressing global polymer margins, forcing restructuring across Europe and Asia while restoring pricing power for integrated North American and Middle Eastern producers.
• Polyethylene (PE): Rising naphtha costs and Hormuz logistics risks are steepening the global PE cost curve, accelerating pressure on high-cost assets and strengthening the strategic position of low-cost integrated exporters.
• Polypropylene (PP): Surging propylene costs are lifting PP prices while compressing PP-to-PGP spreads, exposing merchant producers and revealing integration depth as the underappreciated determinant of 2026 profitability.
• Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC): Rising global PVC prices reflect tightening supply as India’s infrastructure-driven demand surge, China’s export policy shift, and European energy surcharges reinforce the US gas-based cost advantage.
• Other Sector Developments: Rising naphtha, LPG, and sanctioned crude costs are lifting the global petrochemical cost curve, eroding discounted feedstock advantages, and forcing operating discipline across Asia and Europe.

Exhibit 1 – Chart of the Day: Feedstock inflation and geopolitics reset the global petrochemical cost curve.

Source: Bloomberg, C-MACC Analysis, March 2026