Resin To Riches: Weekly Plastic Market Insights

Polymer Global Analysis

Resin To Riches: Weekly Plastic Market Insights

• General Thoughts: Potential weather-driven disruptions from US Winter Storm Fern could push polymer prices higher, helping producers implement price hikes. Absent global rationalization, regional episodic tightness will be short-lived.
• Polyethylene (PE): Potential weather-driven disruptions from US Winter Storm Fern could push polymer prices higher, helping producers implement price hikes. Absent global rationalization, regional episodic tightness will be short-lived.
• Polypropylene (PP): Global PP spot prices strengthened across all major regions last week, with spot propylene prices in the US and Asia adding support amid declines in Europe, as varied supply chain developments manage oversupply.
• Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC): Policy shifts, logistics risks, and limited net capacity additions underpin PVC resilience, positioning markets to reflect more support than olefins as utilization rises despite fragile global construction demand.
• Other Sector Developments: Range-bound crude constrains polymer upside absent cuts, while sustained oil strength would catalyze restructuring, reset feedstock economics, and accelerate the needed global rationalization in 2026.  

Exhibit 1 – Chart of the Day: US Winter Storm Uri disruptions boosted polymer prices; Fern lifts near-term upside risk.       

Source: Bloomberg, C-MACC Analysis, January 2026