"In October we had a very competitive market in the Mercosur region with imports coming from different countries. Due to that, we decided on an increase in the polypropylene offers to Argentina," said the source.
After the hike, Brazilian PP prices to Argentina were at $1,850-1,950/mt CFR for homo raffia, injection and film and $1,950-2,000/mt CFR for co-polymer.
Brazilian PP offers to Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia were pegged at $1,650-1,750/mt CFR for homo raffia, injection and film and at $1,750-1,850/mt CFR for co-polymer.
The Brazilian export market should be short on polyethylene and polypropylene this month because of a maintenance shutdown at Braskem's cracker in Camacari, Bahia, that began Thursday and is expected to last 40 days.
The cracker is responsible for 55% of the olefins production in the Bahia state and has a nameplate capacity of 700,000 mt/year of ethylene and 370,000 mt/year of propylene.
Braskem's LDPE and HDPE plants, which should stop along with the cracker, have a combined production of 500,000 mt/year.
