Why Europe Only Gets Seventy Percent
LyondellBasell guided its European polyolefin assets to 70% for the third quarter and its North American ones to 85%. The fifteen points between those numbers are where the next European closure comes from, and the company has already booked the charge on one of them.
If you buy European polypropylene, LyondellBasell handed you your third-quarter supply picture this morning. One sentence, low in the release, no headline attached to it.
85% for the North American olefins and polyolefins assets. 70% for the European ones. 85% for intermediates and derivatives.
Three numbers, and exactly one of them sits lower than what the same company guided three months ago.
In May, LYB said it was raising European rates to 80%. It has now taken ten points back off while North America holds and I&D climbs (chart below).
The rate that moves
Four quarters of the company's own forward guidance, in order: 60%, then approximately 75%, then 80%, now 70%.
North America across the same four: 80%, approximately 85%, a verb instead of a number in the second quarter ("maximizing rates"), and 85% today.
One fleet gets a twenty-point range. The other gets five points and never goes below eighty.
The rest of this brief is for subscribers.
The capacity math, the trade-flow read, and what it means for the products you buy.
$100 a month, or $800 a year.
Already a subscriber? Sign in