The European vinyl acetate monomer market has come under pressure this week from a combination of Asian imports arriving in the NWE region and bearish domestic demand sentiment, sources said Thursday.
“December is usually a weak month anyway, but with Asian VAM coming off, a lot of Chinese Iso-tanks are ending up in the Rotterdam area this week,” a distributor said.
Another source highlighted that with the holiday season approaching there would be little demand for downstream products such as paints, varnishes and coatings.
This comes as Asian VAM prices continued to collapse this week.
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According to Platts data, the CFR China spot price decreased $90/mt this week to $900/mt Thursday.
Combined with the $90/mt decrease in the previous assessment, the CFR China marker has now lost 16.6% of its value over the past two weeks.
Meanwhile the CFR Southeast Asia marker has lost 12.8% of its value over the same period to be assessed at $1,120/mt on Thursday.
The NWE VAM spot price was assessed at Eur1,210/mt ($1,490/mt) FD NWE last Thursday.
A range of Eur1,150-1,200/mt was reported in Europe in early Thursday trading.
– Platts.com
