European chlor-alkali plant operating rate ticks higher in July

Chlor-alkali plant operating rates in Europe continued to recover in July, to a monthly average of 70.8%, after having plunged to a year-low of 61.6% in May, according to the latest data available from industry body Euro Chlor.

The July operating rate improved from 69.1% in June and was also up from 68.7% compared to the prior-year period, the data showed.

Daily European output of chlorine averaged 22,324 metric tons in July, increasing by 2.4% compared to June but falling slightly, by 1.0%, compared to last year. Total chlorine volumes produced for July of 692,055 metric tons rose sequentially from 654,010 metric tons in June but were short of last year’s figure of 698,806 metric tons.

Caustic soda stocks in Europe of 220,295 metric tons in July increased by 10.8% month-on-month but slipped by 6% from 234,365 metric tons in the year-earlier period.

Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, assessed the free-on-board northwest Europe monthly average caustic soda spot price at $438 per metric ton in July, down from $466.25 per metric ton in June.

Platts calculated the chlorine contract price at €36 per metric ton on Sept. 2, down €3 per metric ton from Aug. 5.

Euro Chlor’s data covers the EU-27 countries plus Norway, Switzerland and the UK, with chlorine volumes from 61 manufacturing locations.

Earlier, it was reported that Vynova Group announced a complete cessation of PVC production at its plant in Beke (Netherlands) by November 2025. The plant's capacity is 225 thousand tons of products per year. Almost simultaneously, the American Dow Chemical announced the closure of several production facilities in the EU. Among them are assets for the production of chlorine, alkali and vinyl in Schkopau (Germany). A year earlier, Ineos Inovyn (part of the Ineos holding) closed two PVC production lines at its site in Newton Aycliffe (UK). The plant's capacity is 300 thousand tons per year.

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Despite a decline in naphtha values, ethylene prices rose in Southeast Asia while remaining stable in Northeast Asia on Thursday, as per Polymerupdate.

CFR South East Asia ethylene prices on Thursday were assessed at the USD 835-845/mt levels, a day on day rise of USD (+5/mt). An industry source in Asia informed a Polymerupdate team member, "Prices in Asia rose on the back healthy regional buying sentiments."

Meanwhile, CFR North East Asia ethylene prices on Thursday were assessed at the USD 835-845/mt levels, unchanged from Wednesday.

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The main construction work at the polymerization unit of the future polyethylene production plant (a joint project of KazMunayGas, SIBUR and Sinopec) in Kazakhstan will begin in October 2025, KazMunayGas said, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The implementation of the Polyethylene project was discussed during negotiations between KazMunayGas Management Board Chairman Askat Khasenov and the chairman of the Sinopec Group's board of directors, Hou Qi Jun, in Beijing.

Piling and foundation work continues at the construction site of the pyrolysis unit, KazMunayGas said. "For the second key unit - polymerization and off-site facilities - an EPC contract was signed with a consortium of Maire Tecnimont (Italy) and Sinopec Shanghai Engineering (China). The start of main construction work for the second unit is planned for October 2025," the company said following the negotiations.

The Polyethylene project reached the final stage of basic engineering in the summer of 2024, and construction work started in September 2024.

Shares in the project are distributed as follows: KazMunayGas - 40%, SIBUR - 30% and Sinopec - 30%. The estimated project cost is $7.7 billion, with financing provided by shareholder funds and attracted loans from international banks.

The project for a polyethylene production plant with a capacity of 1.25 million tonnes per year will be implemented in conjunction with a gas separation complex and main pipelines. It was previously reported that the total cost of all projects would be around $11 billion, representing direct investment by KazMunayGas and its partners.

The raw material for polyethylene production will be ethane, which will be extracted at the gas separation complex being built by KazMunayGas from gas from the fields of Tengizchevroil.

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The complex web of Western sanctions targeting Russia’s oil and gas industry has failed to impede Moscow’s energy flows or its war effort, suggesting that time and overuse are blunting the force of U.S. and European financial weapons, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Economic warfare by Western powers has expanded dramatically over the past decade, with the number of international sanctions surging almost 450% since 2017, according to LSEG Risk Intelligence. This includes both primary sanctions, which bar most activities between the issuing and targeted country, and secondary sanctions, which seek to cut off anyone who deals with sanctioned entities from accessing Western-dominated financial infrastructure.

The major sanctions spike occurred after Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. European Union sanctions on Russia rose from zero in 2013 to 2,534 in 2025. Washington put 3,135 new entities and individuals on its targeted list last year alone, 70% of them Russian, according to the Center for a New American Security.

Russian oil producers, traders, and buyers – especially those in China and India, who represent 80% of Russia’s crude sales – have sought to bypass Western restrictions by building sophisticated alternative trading and financing networks using hundreds of tankers – which are called "dark fleets." Iran and Venezuela, long under heavy sanctions, have developed similar systems.

Western governments, in turn, have sought to expand sanctions to target new entities, ships, and individuals. And as the scale of sanctions has increased, so too has the cost and complexity of enforcement, especially for multinational firms, which – wary of breaching the ever-growing list of rules – have invested heavily in compliance.

Weak price cap. Another downside of piling on sanctions is that this also raises the risk of negatively affecting the economies of the countries doing the sanctioning.

To try to mitigate this, the U.S., Britain, and the EU have sought to structure sanctions so that the Kremlin’s revenues take a hit but Russian oil and gas remain on the market, reducing the risk of price shocks.

To reach that end, in 2022, G7 countries introduced a $60 per barrel cap on Russian crude – a level that was recently lowered by the EU and other G7 members, excluding the U.S. Under this scheme, Russian oil continues to flow, but companies are barred from providing tankers using Western insurance and services if the oil is sold above the cap.

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The gasoline unit at Nigeria's 650,000-bpd Dangote refinery may be shut for 2–3 months for repairs, industry monitor IIR Energy told clients on Thursday, which could lead to a tighter gasoline market, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The unit has been shut since around August 29 after catalyst leaks. The refinery plans to attempt to restart the 204,000-bpd residue fluidized catalytic cracking unit (RFCCU) on September 20, but major repairs and equipment replacement could keep the unit shut for months, IIR Energy said.

It was first reported on Wednesday that Dangote's RFCCU was expected to be shut for at least two weeks. Dangote did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

One gasoline trader said the market for the motor fuel was already strong. "This just adds fuel to the fire," the trader said. The U.S. gasoline futures crack spread has risen nearly 13% so far this week, to its highest since August 19, while Northwest European gasoline profit margins have risen around 23% to $19.31 as of Wednesday according to LSEG data, trading at their highest since late June.

Supply constraints in the market due to current and upcoming outages are enough to offset the seasonal decline in demand, noted Philip Jones-Lux, senior analyst at Sparta Commodities.

The Dangote refinery, which began processing crude in January 2024, has slashed the Europe to West gasoline export trade significantly. EU and UK gasoline exports to Nigeria fell from an average of about 200,000 bpd in 2024 to about 120,000 bpd in the first half of this year, according to Kpler data.

It has also shipped two gasoline cargoes to the U.S. East Coast, expected to arrive in the New York area later this month, a major milestone as industry observers were closely tracking if and when the plant would produce fuel meeting U.S. standards.
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