Egypt faces tightness in HDPE b/m, HDPE injection and GPPS markets

In Egypt, players in the local PE and PS markets have been suffering from a pocket of tightness for despite overall slow demand, as per ChemOrbis. The products facing supply issues are HDPE injection, HDPE blow moulding and GPPS injection. Locally held prices on these materials have a serious premium over the prevailing import offers. In the PE market, players have been complaining of short HDPE blow moulding supplies since mid-July amid tightness for some HDPE injection grades, especially high MI grades. No relief has been seen up until now as buyers face limited cargoes for these materials. Domestic HDPE producer SIDPEC started the month of September with rolled over prices while a source from the company mentioned earlier in the month switching HDPE film production line to HDPE blow moulding. The seller claimed to deliver both materials to the market without any problems, additionally mulling resumption of delivery of high MI HDPE injection grade to the market soon. For this past week, locally held HDPE blow moulding offers gained EGP300/ton (US$50/ton) at the high end of the overall range while the low end showed an EGP100/ton (US$17/ton) decrease on a week over week basis. However, this decrease at the low end was mostly attributed to the still ongoing Ramadan holiday lethargy in the market, which caused delays on most buyers' return to their desks and weakened demand. As the week proceeded, the low end of the offers started to disappear and the lowest viable prices showed an EGP300/ton (US$50/ton) increase at the low end of the range when compared to the beginning of the week. Comparing the locally held cargoes with the current import offers, which were announced with rollovers to US$20-30/ton decreases for September by the regular Middle Eastern suppliers, local HDPE blow moulding offers are traded at a large premium of US$91-94/ton when compared to the localized costs of imports after adding an estimated US$30/ton clearing and handling charges on top of the import prices. A similar situation also came into play in the HDPE injection market, where high MI HDPE injection cargoes are difficult to obtain. Overall locally held prices only ticked up EGP50/ton (US$8/ton) at the high end of the range over this past week but like in the HDPE blow moulding market, the low end of the offers started to fade away towards the end of the week. The lowest feasible price at the end of the week was EGP300/ton (US$50/ton) higher with respect to the low end reported at the beginning of the week. When comparing the locally held HDPE injection cargoes with the import market prices, they carry a US$40-84/ton premium over the localized cost of imports after adding US$30/ton clearing and handling charges. Meanwhile, the country's local GPPS market also suffers from supply issues. Players have been reporting dwindling supply levels for a long time but availability had been balanced with the slow demand inside the country. Distributors' GPPS prices inched up EGP100/ton (US$17/ton) at the low end during this past week and they remained stable at the high end. In spite of these small price movements, the distribution market carries an US$83-193/ton premium when compared with localized costs of overall GPPS imports. In the face of the availability issues, prices are firming up but demand for all these PE and PS products continues to be sluggish amidst the still ongoing liquidity issues in the market, which is an after effect of the political turmoil in the country.