Producers squeezed by rising costs and
rebalancing supply Imports expected to arrive



Spot prices for homopolymer injection
polypropylene at Eur1,660/mt-Eur1,680/mt FDNWE on February 9, unchanged from
the previous day and up Eur40/mt-Eur60/mt over the past week. Monomer
costs rose Eur65/mt. Polypropylene producers wanted to raise prices at a
similar rate or beyond supply rebalancing. Some converters were also motivated by the prospect of more
imports to reduce their contract requirements. One European trader stated that he expected lower prices and
steady imports. Other traders also
confirmed this prediction, predicting that imports would increase and prices
would fall. Upstream, costs were
increasing and this placed pressure on European polypropylene producers. One producer said that he had difficulty passing on initial
requests for price increases up to Eur100/mt. This meant that some producers
were absorbing the cost of...