Asia sees influx of deep-sea butadiene cargoes from US, Europe

News was prepared under the information support of Online Daily Newspaper on Hellenic and international Shipping "Hellenic Shipping News".

30 Jan 2009

Asia is seeing an influx of deep-sea butadiene cargoes as traders capitalize on the arbitrage opportunity because of the difference in price in Asia, Europe and the US. While Asian butadiene was assessed at $445/mt FOB Korea basis last week, the spot price in Europe was $300/mt FOB Rotterdam. Spot butadiene prices in the US were 24 cents/lb, or $528/mt, last week, but a spot fixture traded at 10-13 cents/lb ($220-284/mt) FOB US Gulf this week indicated that prices were still in a sharp downtrend.
Asia has seen spot material fixtures from Europe, the Middle East, the US and even Brazil during January as the ongoing crisis in the automobile industry has wiped out demand for major butadiene end-user, synthetic rubber, in these regions.

Source: Platts