Resin To Riches: Weekly Plastic Market Insights

Polymer Global Analysis

Resin To Riches: Weekly Plastic Market Insights

• General Thoughts: Global polymer markets reflect cost relocation and duration risk, as feedstock systems allocate margins, buyers ration exposure, and uneven downstream demand determines where pricing holds and where it breaks.
• Polyethylene (PE): Global spot PE pricing shows cost support meeting demand resistance, with US spreads expanding, Europe holding at elevated levels, and China’s spot HDPE, LDPE, and LLDPE markets all showing downward pressure.
• Polypropylene (PP): Global PP spot prices follow propylene tightness and regional arbitrage, as compressed PP-to-propylene spreads pressure non-integrated producers, while cost-competitive integrated systems retain an advantage.
• Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC): Global PVC spot pricing is increasingly anchored by route competition, as carbide-based supply caps Asia, while regional cost gaps split pricing power between advantaged exporters and import-exposed producers.
• Other Sector Developments: Global feedstocks track misaligned flows as Asia pays up to sustain operations, while US natural gas-linked production systems retain cost advantage, and delayed transmission extends regional divergences.

Exhibit 1 – Chart of the Day: US spot PE-to-ethylene spreads surge as Europe and Asia remain pressured.  

Source: Bloomberg, C-MACC Analysis, April 2026