European demand for PP compounds has stalled since the middle of 2018, caused by mounting issues in the automotive industry, according to a newly published report by AMI.
The report says that the automotive market, which is the largest market for PP compounds, is facing unprecedented changes as it moves away from internal combustion engines and towards broadly defined eco-sustainability targets.
There are fundamental design differences between electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles, which impacts the use of plastics, but in both designs lightweighting is increasingly valuable and there is therefore intense competition between different solutions and materials.
The large PP compounders are bringing to market substantial performance developments, enabling not only higher performance but also replacement of higher cost, higher density engineering plastics and metal.
A particularly fast-growing is glass-fibre reinforced PP, which is supplied in both short and long glass fibre formats, and is being increasingly used in structural applications such as front-end modules, instrument panel carriers, and door modules.
The leading processor in Europe is LyondellBasell, and other large producers and sellers include Borealis, ExxonMobil, SABIC, and Total.
A second type of compounder doesn’t make PP resin, but instead offers a multi-polymer range of compounds and includes companies such as Sirmax and Celanese, and a third category of compounder invests from overseas, and includes GS Caltex, Kingfa, Mitsui, Washington Penn, and Lotte.
The report also showed that demand in Central and Eastern Europe has been rapidly growing because of the increasing production of cars and appliances and the region has now outstripped Germany for size.