Market Update April 2024

Hope to See You at NPE

NPE is this May 6-10 at the Orange County Convention Center, in Orlando, FL. And Star is located at
booth S35203 in the Recycling and Sustainability Zone. Stop by and say hello, grab a bottle of water, and
check out our reNova™ line of products. Plus, we’ll have our partner Lati S.p.A., one of the most
important European manufacturers of engineering thermoplastics sharing the booth!

Market Pricing:

PC – Pricing data has been mixed and not orchestrated between the majors. Sabic came out with their
price increase on December 17th for implementation on January 15th, but Covestro didn’t come out with
their price increase until February 1st for March 1st implementation. And nothing has happened in the PC
market since. There are rumblings of a second increase by Sabic but that is TBD all while North
American producers need the incremental volume based on demand being a bit soft and imports being a
larger percentage of sales in the market.

Trinseo announced the closing of their Stade, Germany facility for this year as expected.

ABS – Ineos put out an increase of 5 CPP on most all products plus 10 CPP for SMMA on March 15 for
April 1st implementation. Elix is shutting down its plant for maintenance from May 6-26 and is expecting
you to put forth forecasts for April, May, and week 1 of June to assure supply. China’s capacity is larger
than all other ABS-producing countries combined and seems to be kept in China or headed to Europe as
imports to North America are about 50% of what they had been in the last 2 years reports CMA.

PVC – Aurora announced 2 CPP increase for May 1 We’re seeing the overall market in PVC moved in
March by 2 up (and had 3 up in February) as the construction season is just kicking off.

Olefins – We have observed that PE is up about 5 CPP YTD but flat in March while PP in March was
up just a couple of cents overall. Supporting this, Rhetec moved up 7 CPP for April 1 and it was
announced on March 18.

Nylons – Nylon 6 for Q1 is up ~10 CPP and Nylon 66 is about the same while announcements are much
higher, the demand is still a bit soft.

Styrene – LG has two styrene monomer units in South Korea, a 200 Kt unit, and a 300 Kt unit. The
200,000-ton-per-year unit is going to be idled from early May through October 1, 2024. It seems weak
demand was the nail in the coffin to shut it down.

Logistics:

Class 8 truck orders (TLs that we all know and use) increased in February, per ACT Research data, by
17.4% (27,700 units). And total weekly U.S. rail traffic was 472,662 carloads and intermodal units – up
5% from last year – per AAR data. We’re moving more material!

Baltimore is the 17th largest port in the nation (by tons) reports the Washington Post and the Francis Scott
Key bridge is key to its ability to operate. It is a significant port for cars and light trucks along with coal
land construction equipment. As of now, we don’t see this affecting polymer supply specifically though
truck traffic is expected to be a challenge for shipments in and out of the region. In 2023, the Port of
Baltimore accounted for 1.7% of all US imports of plastic materials. It’s reported that the reconstruction
of the bridge will take years to complete.

The west coast continues to be a challenge with increased volume and extending throughput by an
estimated 10 to 12 days reports Freightos. This is a combination of the Suez and Panama Canal issues, the
Chinese New Year push, and some container shortages. The Canal issues should clear up in the next 8
weeks once the rainy season starts.

The Housing Market:

While we’re seeing an increase in sales to the telecommunications market, housing still seems to be quiet
but there are signs of life! NAM reported that home builder confidence is increasing with limited existing
home inventory, while new residential construction permits were up 2.4% in February and housing starts
were up 10.7% coming off a 12% reduction from January reports The Perc Report. This with the Fed
forecasting 3 cuts in the rate this year would support new home sales, too. Builder optimism is high
looking forward to 2024 with pent-up demand pushing to the new home builds.

The Panama Canal Authority announced that in mid-March they were increasing in the number of vessels
per day using the Canal from 25 to 27 per day. We’re still in the dry season for the Panama Canal with the
normal rainy season starting in May.

If you have market information you’d like to share, please email me at the address below. Thanks, and
have a great month!