The plastics scrap industry has been heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The whole world is facing an enormous struggle and the entire scrap market has become blocked.
In the Romanian market, only a few end-product manufacturers are operating and so sales of scrap are low. Moreover, they are not interested in granules of any kind.
On the one hand, Far East buyers are trying to protect their best suppliers and so are continuing to purchase, but only small quantities. On the other hand, they are buying at much lower prices as they hope that, by the time the containers have arrived, the crisis will be over. As a result, only low volumes of LDPE and LLDPE are being shipped to the region. However, a small increase in Chinese market demand has been noted compared to previous months.
In Romania, some growth in the production of packaging scrap has been perceived, mostly due to the lockdown implemented by the government as now most people are using delivery companies. Therefore, some producers are still operating and are searching for LDPE and LLDPE, but the problem is that their capacity is not large enough to absorb all of the material present on the market. There is still a high level of interest in PET as local beverage producers have not been affected by the crisis. Use of PP has been drastically reduced owing to the automotive industry stoppage.
In conclusion, it is difficult to believe that the market will start to improve until COVID-19 restrictions have been relaxed.
Andrei Mihai Sofian
Rematholding CO. SRL. (ROU), Young Trader Representative to the BIR Plastics Committee
Country
Romania