Italian PVC buyers forecast a rollover for April

In Italy, some sellers particularly from Central Europe opened the month of March on a firm note asking for increases of up to 50 euro/ton, pointing to the need to improve their margins. However, some West European sources sustained their prices from February. As relatively attractive prices have been available throughout the month from West and South European sources, Central European sources have also felt forced to step back from their hike targets but they have still failed to match the competitiveness of the West European origins. Rollovers to 10-30 euro/ton increases have reportedly materialized in spot transactions in Italy so far in March. However, the activity has slowed down noticeably in the past few weeks as buyers are not urged to make more purchases beyond their needs given the poor end product markets.
Therefore, buyers appear to be in no mood to accept further increases for another month. They are also pointing to the forthcoming Easter holiday in April, which will cause next month to be relatively short in terms of working days as it will encourage some converters to shut their production for an extended period in the midst of already low business. Another factor supporting buyers' stability expectations is that the global upward pressure on Italy's PVC market has waned recently. Sellers, on the other hand, are not often making comments about next month although they admit that demand remains slow in the country. There are also still some hopes about seeing a revival in PVC demand amongst some sellers since April should see better conditions with respect to the first three months of the year in line with the season. In March, the private sector business activity among the Eurozone countries posted the sharpest increase seen since August, 2007. This news provides some basis for sellers' expectations to witness improved demand next month. (Source ChemOrbis)