Bullish market fundamentals on acetic acid in Northwest Europe have led to strengthening sentiment on downstream acetates and vinyl acetate monomer markets in the second half of March.
S&P Global Platts last assessed acetic acid spot truck prices last Thursday at Eur680/mt FD NWE, but market ideas have been heard substantially higher this week.
An AA distributor said that price range was now outdated, with the market hovering in the mid-high Eur800s/mt. However, these levels remained untested as there was no availability of spot trucks.
The tighter supplies came as some production units in Europe were scheduled to commence maintenance in April.
This followed production outages in the US in earlier months, which took a toll on imports into Europe as these were redirected to the US.
A number of European producers had also enforced sales control on their contracts amid the supply-demand mismatch, which left no residual volumes for spot sales.
AA buyers also corroborated the supply drought, adding that price ideas on downstream ethyl acetate, butyl acetate and VAM were were firming for April.
On etac and butac, some sellers had price increases of Eur50-70/mt in mind, although it remained to be seen how buyers would react to the upside pressure.
Sentiment was also bullish on VAM on the back of feedstock AA tightness but also major production outages in multiple regions.
A VAM distributor said the upside was "more dominated by production [issues] than feedstock constraints," and that he was aiming for a Eur60/mt increase in April prices and did not see any reason to sell below Eur1,200/mt.
However, buyers may be reluctant to accept the increase and this might only be realised gradually, he said.
The spot truck price of VAM was assessed last Thursday at Eur1,150/mt FD NWE.
