Despite a bearish outlook for feedstock propylene, European acrylonitrile spot prices remained stable at $1,675/mt CIF ARA on Tuesday, unchanged from last week and up 56.5% year to date.
A completely dry spot market has seen ACN decouple from feedstock prices, sources said this week.
The European spot price of propylene was last assessed at a 2% discount to the June contract price of Eur840/mt (about $936/mt) FD NWE.
A number of industry participants have expressed their expectation the July propylene European CP will fall another Eur40/mt after the June settlement of Eur840/mt.
Maintenance at Ineos Nitriles' ACN plant in Cologne, Germany, which started this month has seen spot supply dry up.
Tightness in other regions has furthermore prevented traders from importing product to Europe.
Prices in Asia have eased in recent days, but the long voyage time to Europe has left market participants reluctant to import from Asia, as they expect Ineos to increase its available supplies in July.
In Asia, the CFR Far East Asia spot price moved down by $21/mt to reach $1,499/mt on Tuesday, while the CFR South Asia marker moved down by $5/mt to reach $1,505/mt.
"June is still tight and the market is dry. July could be a different story but there's not enough clarity on that yet," a Europe-based trader said.
A second source said that European prices had normally been dictated by Asian prices over the last five years, but that, "This is not the case now [over the past few weeks] because of the Ineos maintenance."
Ineos has been heard buying in the European spot market in June -- the meager volumes that have been available.
According to a third market source, Ineos expects to increase allocations to contract customers in July, but the will not be selling into the spot market and rather focus on contractual obligations, according to the third source.
Ineos was not immediately available for comment.
