Resin Pricing News

The spot resin market was a bit slower than anticipated given it was the last full week of the month. Both Polyethylene and Polypropylene prices averaged a penny lower as offers accumulated. Buyers typically maintain a bearish outlook on commodity resin prices through at least the 2nd quarter and often limit their purchases to an as needed basis. We are seeing single railcar customers just pick away at truckloads every week and larger processors procuring fewer railcars as they continue to scale down their resin inventories. Several Polyethylene producers have now pushed off their $.04/lb increase effort until May; Polypropylene contracts settled down a dime earlier in the month.




Once again the key US energy markets moved in opposite directions, but this week they reversed course. June Crude Oil Futures jumped $4.73/bbl to end the week at a clean $93/bbl. The market has now recovered more than 50% of the losses resulting from a $12/bbl slump during the first half of April to a spike low of $86/bbl. June rolled to the front month Natural Gas contract and finally broke its streak of 9 straight weekly gains during which prices soared more than $1/mmBtu. The market gave back $.214/mmBtu this week to $4.223/mmBtu, this after recovering from Friday’s low of $4.09/mmBtu. This week’s action pushed the Crude Oil: Natural gas ratio out 10% to 22:1.