MOSCOW (
MRC) -- Ukraine's imports of polypropylene (PP) is rapidly growing on the back of the outage of local producer Linik. Thus, PP imports to Ukraine in Q1 2013 grew more than twofold, reaching 39,300 tonnes, from 19,000 tonnes in Q1 2012, according to MRC
DataScope.
March PP imports to Ukraine reached 14,600 tonnes, up 20% from February. March imports of homopolymer of polypropylene (PP-homo) to Ukraine amounted to about 11,400 tonnes, up 18% from February. The total import supplies of PP-homo in the first quarter of 2013 reached 31,700 tonnes, up 166% year on year.
This year Ukrainian companies have significantly increased the imports of PP-homo from Saudi Arabia, India and the United States. The share of European producers has declined, the only exception made the material by Rompetrol production.
Imports of block copolymers of propylene (PP-block) last month made 1,200 tonnes, which is almost equal to the February imports. Ukraine's imports of PP-block in the first quarter of this year made around 3,300 tonnes, up 10% year on year.
The main drop in imports occurred in the supplies of injection moulding copolymers of propylene due to the decline in demand in the automotive sector. The imports of statistical copolymer of polypropylene (PP-random) grew almost twice from February to 1,500 tonnes on the back of growing demand from the producers of pressure polypropylene pipes.
In general, in January - March 2013 imports of PP-random is very close to 3,000 tonnes, up 24% year on year. Only pipe producers increased their demand for PP-random in Q1, while other sectors, on the contrary, reduced it.
The main reason for the record imports in Q1 2013 is an outage of a major domestic producer - Linik. The company stopped its PP production in April 2012 due to economic inefficiency.
The Ukrainian government many times stated it would make every effort to resume operation of the enterprise in the current year.
In the meantime, Ukrainian market meets their needs by imports of polypropylene.
MRC