Formosa was unconfirmed to have offered HDPE blow molding at 55 cents/lb ($1,213/mt), LLDPE at 57 cents/lb, and HDPE film at 57 cents/lb all in railcars delivered to Houston. One can add 2.5 cents/lb to get an FAS Houston bagged price.
These offers were 4 cents/lb higher than Formosa's August loading offers and several cents/lb higher than deals heard a week ago. Last week deals for HDPE blow molding and film were heard at 53 and 54 cents/lb FAS Houston, respectively, with LLDPE deals at 54 cents/lb FAS Houston.
The higher offers were attributed to US PE makers looking for a 5 cents/lb price hike in the US domestic market. In order to support the increase, producers needed to increase their export prices otherwise domestic buyers would use the lower export numbers to argue against the domestic price
hike. Also, supply was said to be tight in the US due to a raft of planned and unplanned outages, and as a result, producers were not long on spot cargoes.
China Chemical Weekly: http://news.chemnet.com/en/detail-1411716.html
