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Once again, prices of the five high-volume commodity resins were a mixed bag going into the first month of the new year. Whereas PE and PVC prices had dropped, those of PP, PS, and PET had moved up. In both cases, feedstock costs were key drivers. But the winds of change were also blowing in different directions, poten- tially deflating PP and PS prices while lifting PVC prices back up. Those are the views of purchasing consultants from Resin Technology Inc. (RTi), Fort Worth, Texas (rtiglobal.com); Michael Greenberg, CEO of the Plastics Exchange in Chicago (theplasticsexchange.com); and Houston-based PetroChemWire (PCW, petrochemwire.com). PE PRICES DROP Polyethylene prices were reported to have dropped by 3¢/lb in at least some cases in December, although suppliers announced no price reductions, according to Mike Burns, RTi's v.p. of client services for PE. He said the price move was confirmed by several RTi clients. PCW said no suppliers had indicated a market-wide PE price reduction for December. The Plastics Exchange's Greenberg reported that after peaking in mid- September, spot PE prices have been sliding ever since. He noted that most spot PE prices were still several cents higher at year's end. PCW characterized spot PE prices as mostly flat following the year-end holidays, adding that spot availability appeared scarce, and low-end December sale prices were no longer seen on the market. RTi's Burns, for one, ventured that further price reductions on the order of 5-7¢/ lb were plausible in January and February. He noted, "If global oil prices remain up, PE suppliers will export a lot more material, which would in turn slow down domestic price reductions." He said there are industry expectations for increased first-quarter exports, due to higher cost and lower PE, PVC Prices Down; PP, PS, PET Up But what's going up could go down again soon. By Lilli Manolis Sherman Senior Editor inventories in Southeast Asia and China. Domestic PE produc- tion is pretty strong, according to Burns, who characterized first- quarter supplier inventories as "healthy but not long." PP PRICES INCH UP, BUT REVERSAL LIKELY Polypropylene prices moved up 1¢/lb in December as they had in November, in step with propylene monomer contracts. Scott Newell, RTi's v.p. of PP markets, ventured that we would possibly see a bit higher PP prices in January, but he expected a reversal in the price trend to follow. An unplanned outage at a Dow propylene unit in December had contrib- uted to the monomer tightness, but Polyethylene Price Trends HDPE Injection DEC JAN HDPE Blow Molding DEC JAN HDPE HMW DEC JAN LDPE DEC JAN 5¢/lb LLDPE Butene DEC JAN 5¢/lb 5¢/lb 5¢/lb 5¢/lb Market Prices Effective Mid-January 2018 Resin Grade ¢/lb POLYETHYLENE (railcar) LDPE, LINER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97-99 LLDPE BUTENE, FILM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83-85 NYMEX 'FINANCIAL' FUTURES . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 FEBRUARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 HDPE, G-P INJECTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99-101 HDPE, BLOW MOLDING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89-91 NYMEX 'FINANCIAL' FUTURES . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 FEBRUARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 HDPE, HMW FILM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106-108 POLYPROPYLENE (railcar) G-P HOMOPOLYMER, INJECTION . . . . . . . . . . . 79-81 NYMEX 'FINANCIAL' FUTURES . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 FEBRUARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 IMPACT COPOLYMER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81-83 POLYST YRENE (railcar) G-P CRYSTAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109-111 HIPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115-117 PVC RESIN (railcar) G-P HOMOPOLYMER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80-82 PIPE GR ADE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79-81 PET (truckload) U.S.BOT TLEGR ADE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Polypropylene Price Trends Homopolymer DEC JAN Copolymer DEC JAN 1¢/lb 1¢/lb 78 FEBRUARY 2018 Plastics Technology PTonline.com YO U R B U S I N E S S Resin Pricing Analy sis