Market Update — November 2024

Plant Shutdowns and Supply Shifts

INEOS announced on October 30th that they will shut down their Addyston, Ohio facility, which makes
ABS and SAN by Q2/25. Citing competitive pressures from imports and the investment needed to update
the Addyston facility, the decision was made to close the factory. The plant was originally started in
1953 by Monsanto. They will service customers from their other Americas plants and global network of
production facilities.

This is the second big announcement in the last week or so, as INEOS opted not to restart its Sarniastyrene monomer plant.

Materials firm Trinseo will stop production of polycarbonate resin and the management of three
business units in an attempt to improve financial results. On September 30th, Trinseo (Wayne, Pa.)
announced it will stop PC resin production in Stade, Germany by January 2025. Once operations are shut
down, Trinseo will buy PC from other suppliers to fill the needs of its compounded product line.

Ascend Performance Materials is closing the Greenwood, S.C., nylon plant and moving its polymer
operations to their plant in Pensacola, Fla. The company reported to Plastics News that the global
economic pressure, especially in the automotive and construction sectors, motivated the decision. This
will affect about 200 employees. From a supply chain perspective, there doesn’t seem to be an impact
given the current state of the market with lower than expected demand and readily available supply.

Materials in the market:

Chemical Market Analytics continues to report that ABS prices are flat from the majors, both domestic
and imported materials. PC seems to be flat as well from the majors based on normal supply and
demand market pressures. Nylon is flat to somewhat down based on the key markets in automotive and
housing. Automotive is 60% of nylon 6 and 40% of 66 in North America. While acetal accounts for 45% of
automotive and 70% of the PBT consumed annually, these polymers are flat YTD. They also believe that
the automotive market is flat at less than 3% growth in 2025 with Asia being similar. And that this trend will continue into 2028.

Lead times for importers – Mitsubishi is pushing 20 weeks right now with Lotte at about 14 weeks from our observations. This has nothing to do with the short-lived ILA strike from the first of October. Star lead-times are at three weeks and we’re meeting the needs of our customers at every turn!