Clariant rejects Dow damages claim related to ethylene-purchasing cartel

Clariant AG has “firmly” rejected allegations by the European subsidiary of Dow Inc., Dow Europe, against four companies, including Clariant, for damages of €767 million related to infringements of EU competition law in the ethylene-purchasing market, which were punished with fines by the European Commission in 2020, according to a Clariant statement May 12.

Clariant said that it will “adamantly” defend its position in the proceedings. “Dow Europe was not a supplier of ethylene to Clariant and Clariant has substantiated economic evidence that the conduct of the parties did not produce any effect on the market,” the company said.

Dow Europe formally brought a claim for damages against the four companies with a court in Munich on May 9, Clariant said. Further details have not been disclosed. Clariant rejected similar claims by Shell PLC in 2023 and BASF SE earlier this year.

In 2020, the commission had fined Clariant €155.8 million for participating in the ethylene-purchasing cartel. Celanese Corp. and Orbia were also fined. Westlake Corp. was the fourth cartel member, but the company escaped a fine because it alerted the commission to the cartel’s existence.

Dow is one of the largest producers of ethylene in the world and was the largest one in Europe in 2023, according to the Ethylene Report that was published in July 2024 by S&P Global’s Chemical Economics Handbook.

The European ethylene spot price was assessed at €725.50/Mt FD NWE May 9, according to Platts data.

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Lotte Chemical Corp's $3.9-B large-scale petrochemical plant in Indonesia has signed a 10-year ethylene supply contract with PT Asahimas Chemical, as per Chemweek.

Companies sign 10-year sale and purchase agreement for supply of approximately 150,000 metric tons per year of ethylene.

"Lotte Chemical Indonesia (LCI) will supply ethylene, a key raw material in the petrochemical industry, to ASC for its production processes," it said without specifying the volume of supply.

LCI, which houses a newly built 1-MMtpy naphtha cracker, was slated to begin commercial production in April but has delayed the start up to September or October due to poor margins, a company source said. Trial runs were underway in early April, the source added.

The companies entered into a 10-year long-term sales and purchase agreement for the supply of ethylene to bolster petrochemical supply chain in the country and to reduce dependency on imported raw materials, LCI said in the statement.

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Domo Chemicals increases capacity of portfolio of engineered materials based on polyamides and other resins at Mumbai, said the company.

As announced more than two years ago , polyamide specialist Domo Chemicals (Leuna, Germany ) has doubled the compounding capacity of its plant in India for materials of the Technyl brand, acquired from the former Solvay , as confirmed to Plasteurope.com by a spokesperson. Neither the capacity nor the investment amount for the expansion at Mumbai were specified, however.

A conservative estimate puts capacities at the site in the 12,000 t/y range. In 2023, Domo had installed a compounding line at Mumbai, in the sate of Maharashtra, putting capacity at up to 8,000 t/y at the time, although the actual figure would likely have been closer to 6,000 t/y.

With this step, Domo wants to not only shorten delivery times to the country, but also pave the way for further development cooperation with Indian and Asian customers. The Indian market is a rapidly growing one for the polyamide specialist, especially in the application areas of e-mobility and electronics.

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Evonik Industries AG has confirmed its 2025 earnings forecast, following a good start to the year. The company continues to expect adjusted EBITDA in the range of €2.0 billion-€2.3 billion, as per Chemweek.

Evonik’s CFO Maike Schuh said earlier today during an analysts’ call that the risks have increased since the company provided its outlook range back in March, but it is still “very much intact and realistic,” because it can confirm all positive factors and assumptions.

“We will deliver high double-digit million additional net savings. We expect lower energy costs from our hedges as well as decreasing spot energy prices on smaller unhedged parts. And our animal nutrition business continues to do better for longer. The methionine market will remain tight also in the second quarter of the year, and demand continues to be very strong,” Schuh said.

The company is expecting a lower global GDP growth for 2025, at only 2.2%, compared with 2.5% two months ago, while foreign exchange is turning from a “tailwind into a headwind,” Schuh added. The direct impact from tariffs is expected to be low, he said.

“It is clear that there are some risks around us and that we cannot fully assess all of them at the moment. Weak customer and end consumer confidence, further escalating trade and tariff tensions or even a global recession are scenarios we have and we do prepare ourselves for,” Schuh said during the call.

Visibility is currently very low, but there are no indications that the situation is getting significantly worse, he noted. EBITDA in April continued in line with the average monthly level of the first quarter across all Evonik’s businesses, he said. “There is no pronounced macro slowdown and no significant drop in volumes or orders visible yet,” he added.

Better than expected pricing trends in the animal nutrition business supported earnings growth in the first quarter of 2025, Evonik said, adding that it expects this trend to continue at least in the second quarter of the year.

Evonik reported a 49% year-over-year increase in first-quarter net profit, to €233 million, while adjusted EBITDA was 7% higher, at €560 million, beating analysts’ consensus estimate of €533 million, provided by S&P Capital IQ. The company’s adjusted EBITDA margin rose 1%, to 14.8%.

Cost discipline and higher sales volumes, up 2% year over year, also supported the increase in first-quarter earnings, Evonik said. Revenue, however, declined 1%, to €3.78 billion, as prices declined by 2%, the company said.

“We had a good start to the year. However, the combination of a looming global trade war and armed conflicts makes planning for the future more uncertain than ever,” said Evonik’s CEO Christian Kullmann.

The company’s specialty additives business recorded a 1% increase in sales, to €923 million, due to slightly higher volumes and positive currency effects, Evonik said. The business’ adjusted EBITDA was 1% higher, at €201 million, while the adjusted EBITDA margin was 21.9%, compared with 21.8%, the prior-year period.

Sales of the company’s nutrition and care business increased 12% year over year, to €1.01 billion, mainly due to higher sales volumes, it said. The business’ adjusted EBITDA improved 35%, to €197 million, while the adjusted EBITDA margin rose 3.4 percentage points compared with the prior-year period, to 19.6%.

Sales of Evonik’s smart materials business were flat year over year, to €1.1 billion, with volumes and selling prices roughly on par with the prior-year quarter, the company said. The business’ adjusted EBITDA was €149 million, 7% down compared with the first quarter of 2024. The adjusted EBITDA margin decreased 1 percentage point, to 13.6%.

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MOL Group (Budapest, Hungary) has reported a modest recovery in petrochemical sales in the first quarter of 2025, weighing against continued weakness in margin performance, as per Chemweek.

The company saw petchem sales volumes of 308,000 metric tons in the quarter, up 16% compared to the fourth quarter and 11% year over year, supported by improved capacity utilization and higher processed volumes following heavy maintenance turnarounds, it said in its financial results announcement on May 9.

Despite this, MOL’s variable petrochemical margin narrowed from €167 per metric ton in the fourth quarter to €151 per metric ton in the first quarter, reflecting ongoing pressure in the European petrochemical market.

The company said that the “petrochemicals price environment remained challenging overall,” with margins “below EBITDA breakeven threshold” despite the pickup in sales volumes.

This adds on previous negative sentiment expressed by MOL earlier this year. During the company’s 2025 Management discussion at its Annual General Meeting on April 24, MOL said that “European petrochemicals continued to face stagnating demand” amid “global excess capacity for ethylene and propylene, particularly in China, [which] continued to depress polymer spreads as the structurally higher costs of energy and decarbonization in Europe met low-cost import competition.”

MOL’s petchems segment includes two production sites at Tiszaujvaros, Hungary, and Bratislava, Slovakia. In Bratislava, the firm produces high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and low-density polyethylene (LDPE) resins. In Tiszaujvaros, the company operates a steam cracker, alongside polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) production, with plans to launch production of 200,000 metric tons per year of polyols for use in polyurethane industries in the near future.

No update was given by the company on the polyols project during the May 9 earnings call. MOL announced the polyols project was inaugurated in May last year.

In its earnings materials, MOL highlighted that the price and margin effect was “slightly negative,” in line with the margin decline, and reaffirmed that petrochemicals EBITDA remained in the red for the quarter. CEO Zsolt Hernadi acknowledged broader economic and geopolitical challenges, noting that improved operational execution across segments, especially upstream, helped offset market volatility.

The group’s profit for the quarter before tax rose 23% year over year to $546 million, with group-level clean EBITDA on a current cost of supply basis climbing 16% to $833 million.

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