US ethylene margins climbed for the week as production issues over the weekend pushed spot markets higher Monday.
Power outages were reported at Flint Hills Resources in Port Arthur, Texas, and at Chevron Phillips Chemicals' Sweeny complex. The outages took place Saturday and were expected to last several days.
Additionally, US Gulf Coast NGL prices declined week on week, which added to the gain in cracker margin assessments.
US spot ethylene was up 5.25 cents for the week to an assessment of 59.25-59.75 cents/lb FD USG on Monday as four May deals were reported in the range of 59.25-59.75 cents/lb Mont Belvieu-Williams pipeline basis.
Ethane-based margins were up 4.56 cents at 39.98 cents/lb compared with the May 6 assessment of 35.42 cents/lb. Ethane/propane mix (80/20) margins gained 4.72 cents from the past week's assessment of 37.70 cents/lb to an assessment Monday of 42.42 cents/lb.
Propane cracker margins were up to 36.74 cents/lb Monday -- a gain of 5.50 cents since the May 6 assessment of 31.24 cents/lb.
Naphtha-based cracker margins gained 3.59 cents to be assessed Monday at 13.91 cents/lb.
The normal butane cracker margin assessment increased 4.69 cents, assessed Monday at 30.56 cents/lb.
In feedstocks, US Gulf Coast purity ethane was down 0.9 cent for the week, assessed Monday at 27.75 cents/gal. Gulf Coast E/P mix dropped 1.25 cents, assessed Monday at 26.75 cents/gal.
Propane slipped 2.5 cents for the week to be assessed Monday at 93.50 cents/gal.
Platts' assessments of cracker margins measure the relative gain and loss in cents/lb for ethylene produced from cracking several feedstocks.
Each assessment uses the current spot price and yields of the various products (ethylene, propylene, butane, benzene, toluene, xylene, fuel oil and low sulfur fuel oil) from cracking various light and heavy feedstocks (ethane, propane, butane and an 80:20 E/P mix).
