Nov. ICIS IPEX Down 13% on Weak Economy, Energy

By ICIS pricing

Houston (ICIS news) – The ICIS Petrochemical Index (IPEX) for November plummeted by a record 13% to 288.01 from October's reading of 331.83 on a combination of global economic woes and declining energy values.

The previous record percentage month-on-month decline was a 10.4% fall in October.

All 12 products in the IPEX portfolio declined in November, led by a 29% nosedive in benzene.

The plunge in benzene was led by Europe, where values crashed 63%.

Propylene tumbled by 23% on a global basis, reacting to oil prices that dropped by about 35% in October.

Percentage falls in seven other commodity chemicals reached double digits.

Among the chemicals posting relatively smaller declines, styrene dropped by only 1.3%, saved from a bigger drop by inertia in contract settlements due to benzene's collapse.

Other relatively resilient values were for polystyrene (PS), down by 6.5%, and methanol, down by 5.3%.

Published at the beginning of each month, the IPEX provides an independent indicator of average change in world petrochemical prices.

Dating back to January 1993, historical ICIS prices for a basket of 12 essential petrochemical grades in the US, Western Europe, and the northeast Asian markets have been weighted by regional nameplate capacity to generate a monthly index value.

The IPEX product basket comprises ethylene, propylene, benzene, toluene, paraxylene, styrene, methanol, butadiene, PVC, polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), and polystyrene.