Resin To Riches: Weekly Plastic Market Insights

Polymer Global Analysis

Resin To Riches: Weekly Plastic Market Insights

• General Thoughts: Asia’s naphtha premium over Europe should persist through 2H26, supporting demand for US ethane access as softer crude lowers costs but weak polymer buying limits producer margins.
• Polyethylene (PE): Available PE supply is rebuilding before buyer confidence broadens, giving low-cost producers with strong export access and stable customers a better chance of defending margins through 2H26.
• Polypropylene (PP): Asian and European PP producers are struggling to pass through monomer costs, while additional US supply should pressure PGP without producing the decline that weak demand alone would suggest.
• Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC): PVC demand looks firmer in infrastructure-linked products, but China’s renewed spot weakness and the unwind of 2Q26 inventory pull-forward could constrain merchant resin pricing power through 3Q26.
• Other Sector Developments: EIA provides a credible crude downside case, but depleted inventories and constrained Gulf trade leave 2H26 prices more exposed to physical disruption than its early July forecast captures.

Exhibit 1 – Chart of the Day: Asia Keeps a Naphtha Premium as Demand for US Ethane Access Grows.

Source: C-MACC Estimates, August 2026