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The US market was significantly impacted by substantial plant outages in Q3 2020 caused by
hurricanes, followed by severe winter storms during February 2021, which hit primary petrochemical
plants on the Gulf Coast and caused essential plants to declare force majeure. Although plants have
begun to reopen, supply remains insufficient to meet demand. The June 2021 average price of US PET
was USD 1,720/MT, up 70% y-o-y and 7.6% m-o-m.
The US PP market was severely impacted by the plant outages in Q3 2020 and February 2021. The
tight supply has been insufficient to meet firm US demand leading to increased reliance on PP
imports from Asia. Factories have gradually begun to reopen which caused prices to slip since April
but recovered in June. The June average price of US PP was USD 2,760/MT, up 116% y-o-y and 14%
m-o-m.
The EU PET market weakened slightly as PET factories began to reopen, alleviating some of the supply
issues the EU PET market has dealt with over the past half year. The price remains significantly higher
y-o-y however, supported by the tightness in the market. The June 2021 average price of EU PET was
recorded at EUR 1,297/MT, up 75% y-o-y but down 2.8% m-o-m.
Tight supply and firm demand continued to support the EU PP market, which, like other plastic
materials, has been driven more by fundamentals rather than by COVID-19. The June 2021 average
price of EU PP was EUR 1,868/MT, up 78% y-o-y and unchanged m-o-m.