Prices of polypropylene (PP) in Europe continued to decline in May, as demand remains low, sources told ICIS market.

Thus, the price of propylene homopolymer (PP-homo) are already at about the beginning of April, reaching already below EUR1,000 per tonne FD NWE (North-East Europe).

One trader said: “The demand awful.”

Now it became clear that a good buying activity at the beginning of the year was partly due to stockpiling, and in May, many processors have been able to significantly reduce the volume.

Despite the drop in demand for many brands of PP-homo, the market still remains limited offer several brands of propylene copolymers (PP-block).

One of the buyers of PP block said: “We just could not make the stocks.”

Meanwhile, propylene contract prices may rise in June, according to some manufacturers, but the increase will be minimal. In this regard, PP buyers imply that manufacturers would negate any increase in prices in view of the increased difference between quotations monomer and polymer, which they were able to achieve in recent months.