Insight
Coronavirus and polymers - how polyolefin markets have reacted to the outbreak
Report summary
The world is different, now. The plastics industry was bright-eyed and optimistic heading in to the new decade. The protracted trade war between the US and China was pointed towards resolution, concerns over the fallout of Brexit had abated and demand expectations improved following a lack-lustre 2019. Such optimism was quickly withdrawn, however, as the coronavirus outbreak began to grip global economies, first in China and now world-wide. Welcome to our weekly update on how the coronavirus is impacting polymer demand. In each of these updates we’ll seek to provide you with • commentary about important developments surrounding coronavirus broadly • how we’re perceiving demand in different markets and regions • and how that is reflected in a newly developed coronavirus demand model
Table of contents
- The pandemic:
- Global economy:
- Are polyolefins markets resilient against current market turbulence?
- How does the low oil price play into the market environment?
- Assets
- Will the coronavirus leave a legacy on global polyolefin market trends?
- To conclude we can summarize that:
Tables and charts
This report includes 9 images and tables including:
- Verisk AIR dashboard: global forecast of cases and fatalities, 2-week outlook
- Pandemic response profile as modelled in our ‘setback’ scenario
- Updated polymer demand outlook little changed in our ‘setback’ scenario
- Demand volume change for polyolefins under the 2020 setback scenario
- Change in polyolefin demand growth under the setback scenario
- Level of exposure of polyolefins to key end use sectors
- Polyolefins demand growth and crude oil prices
- Asia HDPE-naphtha spread
- 2020 margins for North America and Middle East producers
What's included
This report contains: