Falling New Base Prices for Polymeric Materials Affected by Global Polymer Prices

Today, Sun. Nov. 3rd., 2019 the polymer markets in Iran were witnessing polymer prices fall, while the US$ value being reduced only by 0.3%. This means that the Iranian market, following the global market for polymers, has also experienced a sharp decline in prices over the past seven weeks. This is a normal trend by the PDID Office of the NPC that its legal mission is far from what they do!

According to the reports of the Plastics Industry Media, this week, despite relative stability in the average US$ value (down by 0.3% only), we saw new base prices for polymer materials falling down due to declining in polymers’ global prices. Like always, whenever the role of the official value of US$ (NIMA system) becomes less effective then the role of global polymers becomes effective. In this regard, this week, with the exception of one commodity group (SBR) all commodity groups experienced a decline in base prices. Here’s a look at this week’s highlights.
Incremental side of the market
In the upstream market, there was only one commodity group which had an uphill trend and there was only 1% increase in base price of bright SBR. Also, the price of dark SBR was not announced. A one percent increase in the base price of the bright SBR led to a price of Rls. 132.304 /Kg.
Decreasing side of the market;
Unlike the rising market, which was very quiet this week, the downside of the market was inclusive of a large number of commodities. Here’s a look at the highest declines for this week.
The highest rate of price drops belonged to the GPPS. By 5.7% decrease in this group of polymers, reaching its price to Rls 102,234 / Kg.
The second commodity that recorded the highest price drop was again belonging to the polystyrene family. This week the EPS type marked a 5.3% drop in prices. This decrease in the base price compared to the previous week caused the price of this product to reach to Rls. 109.357/Kg., which is Rls. 6.110 cheaper than last week.
HDPE extrusion type (PE 80) recorded the third highest decline in base price. The commodity group declined 4.55% (equivalent to Rls. 4.321/ kg) in comparison with last week and its price reached to Rls. 90.737 / Kg. ABS, also, fell by 4.4% with the new price of Rls. 130.016 / kg in the official market.

A brief analysis of last week’s trading volume (following table Sun. Oct. 27th till Sat. Nov. 2nd.) shows that;

1- A total number of 198 bids have been registered;

2- Out of 198 times of bids (declined 32 times in comparison with its previous week) competition for purchasing materials with the lowest possible prices, only 169 competitions (23 times less than the total of its last week) were ended to deals at IME Petrochemical hall. This shows – irrespective of the total numbers- the polymer markets are turning to be more logical than before;

3- The lowest deals registered for liquid Epoxy Resin (like most week and last week) by 8.8 tones, liquid Epoxy Resin by 8.8 tones and solid Epoxy Resin by 13.20 tones respectively. The reason might be the higher and competitive prices of epoxy resins.

4- The highest one time deals were registered for LLDPE by 3.102 tones (like last week), 2.002 tones for textile grade of PET and 2.000 tones for HDPE respectively;

5- The number of deals from the highest belong to the following commodities; PP (45 times), HDPE (29 times), PVC (19 times) and LDPE (15 times).

The following prices are the free market prices on Sun. Oct. 26th., (3 hours after today’s new base price announcement). The GREEN figures show decreased prices, the RED the increased ones. While, the BLACK figure is showing the prices that remained constant, all in comparison with last Sat. Oct. 26th.

The following table shows the weekly trading figures including ODTv index for the week between Sun. Oct. 27th., till Sat. Nov. 2nd.