Polypropylene imports down 19% in Russia

Over the course of January-September, polypropylene (PP) imports went down by 19% (to 95.12 kt) in Russia, as compared with the same period last year – MRC’s analysts reporting.

The long logistics leg at delivery of copolymers from Asia is limiting PP availability in the Russian market. Nearly a half of PP imports belonged to the leading European producers: Borealis, LyondellBasell, INEOS.

Imports of PP-homo dropped by 19% and moved at 52.91 kt. Major imports share belonged to PP-homo produced by Turkmenbashynsky Refinery (29%) and Lisichansk Refinery (27%).

PP-random imports went up by 25%, up to 18.88 kt. Nearly a half of imports belonged to pipe-grade PP-random (for reference, the share of pipe-grade PP-random was at the level of only 15% of overall imports). Major volumes of imported pipe-grade PP-random belonged to material produced by Borealis and LyondellBasell (overall share was at about 83%).

PP-impact imports decreased 32%, to 17.46 kt. Russian producers and traders cut down imports of South Korean PP-impact by nearly three times.