NEWS FLASH: – Polymer Film Price Increases

Posted on 28 Feb 2017

NEWS FLASH: – Polymer Film Price Increases

It will be no surprise to regular readers of these jottings that in the last 14 days we have had two multinational polymer suppliers declare ‘Force Majeure’ at two polymer manufacturing plants.

These are;

Lyondell Basell have declared ‘Force Majeure’ at their Brindisi plant in Italy.

Borealis have declared ‘Force Majeure’ at their Kallo plant in Belgium.

In January, we said. “We can be sure at some point the polymer suppliers will raise their prices, as there will undoubtedly be more ‘outages’ in the next few weeks.” As a consequence we forecast a further tightening of polymer supply with the resultant upward price movement. This is exactly what is happening.

In January and February we saw incremental increases in film prices, totaling circa £90 per tonne with some specialty films marked up around £120 per tonne. This upward price momentum is already evident with March increases at a further £100 per tonne. As a consequence we reiterate our advice to all our customers, now is not the time to be short of stock. Price increases for customers who have not got stock holdings are inevitable. This development is exactly why we made our 6 months fixed offer in December to all customers who bought forward.

We will keep you updated. Should you have any thoughts on these developments they will be welcome.

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