Local ABS natural market moves below import prices in Turkey

In Turkey, the locally-held ABS market natural failed to keep up with the bullish trend for imports due to unsupportive demand during the last month of 2016. Korean ABS makers applied hefty increases of up to $200/ton by the middle of December citing skyrocketing butadiene costs in Asia, whereas the distribution market shrugged off those hikes, part of which passed on import deals.

The local ABS market lacked of premium over the import levels despite distributors’ efforts to lift their offers up. Two weeks ago, the local ABS natural market started to trade at par with the imports, according to data from ChemOrbis Price Wizard, while the latest hikes pushed the import market above local prices.



Source: Price Wizard

The local ABS natural market was unchanged for another week at $1600-1650/ton ex-warehouse Turkey, cash not inc VAT. “Although our soaring replacement costs encouraged us to try higher offer levels, we could not obtain any increases. This is because there are still competitive prices for cargos with old costs from sellers who need to turn cash,” distributors complained. A local seller said, “We could not sell natural grade at $1700/ton as even $1650/ton hardly works nowadays.”