German chemical producer price inflation remained high in June at 7.3% year-on-year even though feedstock cost pressures eased, data from the Federal Statistics Office (Destatis) released Wednesday shows.
Price inflation for light naphtha slowed to 36.5% on an ex-works basis from over 40% in May, while the cost of liquefied petroleum gas for use in petrochemical processes grew 27.3% compared with 33.5% a month earlier.
Against the preceding month, the chemical price index was up 0.4%, marking the nineteenth consecutive month of positive on-month inflation, while light naphtha prices slid 4.2% and LPG prices dropped 7.4% month-on-month.
Upward pressure on chemical prices remained strong in the base chemicals sector, which recorded annual inflation of 8.0% following a 0.5% month-on-month rise. This included a 17.7% price hike for fertilizers and nitrogen compounds, a 10% rise for plastics in primary forms, a 6.7% increase for organic base chemicals and a 5.9% increase for inorganic base chemicals. Man-made fiber prices surged 17.9% year-on-year.
Further downstream, producers of plastics products raised domestic sales prices by 4.4% year-on-year, including a 7% rise for plastic packaging. German chemical industry association attributed sales price hikes over the first half of the year to higher raw material input costs as well as to strong demand.
"For some chemicals the demand was so strong that production capacities were temporarily insufficient to fully serve customers. This accelerated the price increase," VCI president Klaus Engel said at the group's mid-year conference on July 14.
