Middle Eastern producers have offered March PE to Turkey and Egypt at different pricing policies, particularly for the tightly available LLDPE in Turkey. As per Chemorbis, a regional producer has issued US$10-20/ton increases on CIF Turkey LLDPE offers to advantage from the short term tightness in the domestic market, triggered by the absence of a key supplier for over two weeks. Additional LLDPE offers are expected from the producer who has already sold out March quotas according to a buyer’s report. Additional LLDPE offers are expected from other producers with similar increases on March offers.
In the distribution market, LLDPE film offers continue to remain at their firm levels while the high end of the range recorded US$40/ton increases on week over week basis. In Egypt, Middle Eastern producers elected to rollover prices for LLDPE film from February. Globally, LLDPE markets have been strong in H1-February despite the not so strong demand in Egypt. However, the previous tightness faded after the Lunar New Year holiday as the Chinese buyers failed to return to the market at the pace anticipated by sellers.
Two Middle Eastern producers elected to announce their HDPE film offers with rollovers from February in Turkey. However, another regional producer, who aims to remain competitive in the market, elected to issue US$50/ton decreases. This stable to soft pricing policy from the regional producers is down to the slow HDPE demand in Turkey. Meanwhile, in the Egyptian market too, regional producers mostly elected to rollover their prices from the previous month’s levels while one producer’s offers represent a US$20/ton increase over their most recent prices in February. However, buyers in the country do not show much interest for these offers considering slow demand, comfortable local supply levels with different origins present in the market and the EGP200/ton (US$36/ton) decrease issued by the local producer SIDPEC. Now, the local HDPE market poses as the most competitive choice for Egyptian buyers as they can find up to US$40/ton lower prices with prompt availability advantage. Plus, HDPE film offers are above the theoretical levels based on a netback from China. Regional producers’ HDPE film offers in Egypt are also above the levels reported in Turkey. This situation coupled with slow demand in the country is strengthening the expectations of lower done deal levels for this product.
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