US VAM free on board export prices on March 31 and previous week up by $100/tonne at range of US$1,600-US$1,800/tonne from $1,500-US$1,700/tonne
Elyse Blye
LONDON , April 25, 2014 (ICIS Chemical Business (CBNB Abstracts)) – Because of plant turnarounds and supply issues, US vinyl acetate monomer (VAM) FOB (free on board) export prices increased by $100/tonne and is now at the range of $1600-1800/tonne from $1500-1700/tonne during the past week to 31 Mar 2014 based on ICIS assessment. Starting early Jan, export prices have increased by 63% with most of the rise in Mar. The recent increase of $100/tonne or more is the fourth increase in the past month. Starting late Feb, two American producers including LyondellBasell have declared force majeure. The 365,000 tonne/year VAM plant of Dow Chemicals in Texas City, TX, will be shut in Apr for planned maintenance. VAM prices are just above $1000/tonne at the start of the year. Price hikes are due partly to plant outages in Europe late-2013 and temporary outages in the US in 2014, from turnarounds and force majeures. DuPont and LyondellBasell plants will be shut down in Apr for planned maintenance. A graph entitled US VAM Prices shows the spot price (in $/tonne) of VAM on a FOB export basis from Apr 2012 to Apr 2014.
* All content is copyrighted by Industry Intelligence, or the original respective author or source. You may not recirculate, redistrubte or publish the analysis and presentation included in the service without Industry Intelligence's prior written consent. Please review our terms of use.