Locally-held ABS trades below imports in Turkey

Import ABS prices followed a bullish trend since late November last year while the increasing trend gained momentum in December driven by rising production costs on a global scale, for butadiene in particular. According to ChemOrbis Price Index, import ABS injection prices stand at 2 year-highs recently boosted by 18 month-high styrene prices and record high butadiene costs at $3000/ton, both on FOB Korea basis.

However, the impact of rallying costs of import ABS found limited reflection in the locally-held market since then as the vulnerable economic and political environment kept activity cautious and put a cap on larger hikes from distributors.

Currently, the locally-held ABS natural injection market stands below the import market on a weekly average, as can be seen in the graph below:



Source: ChemOrbis Price Wizard

“South Korean ABS natural prices posted a new round of increases for February to stand at $1800-1850/ton CIF Turkey, cash. We just started to persuade buyers to accept $1850/ton ex-warehouse Turkey, cash not inc VAT,” complained distributors.

Some players pointed to the cash flow issues going on in Turkey’s polymer markets, saying, “This situation still forces a few distributors to concede to prices below their replacement costs.”

Sellers hope that demand may improve a bit in the second half of the month as USD/Turkish lira parity eased down to below 3.77 recently. Plus, China’s ABS market may return from holiday on a strong note amidst limited styrene, butadiene and ABS supplies in Asia which could pave the way for additional increases in Turkey, they remind.