Late March 2025 witnessed stability in Butyric Acid prices as market conditions remained steady, with French and European producers largely keeping their prices unchanged throughout the month. While manufacturing costs eased due to recent declines in feedstock Propylene prices across the European market, internal logistical bottlenecks continued to cause incremental increases in lead times for deliveries, leading to some hindrances in circulation of Butyric Acid across the French market.

Demand for Butyric Acid remains sluggish in the animal feed industry and the food and flavoring sector, with both industries continuing to experience a downturn. This led to challenges for suppliers in procuring material as per their requirements. Leading European Butyric Acid producers were reported to have largely maintained their existing quotations heading into March 2025. However, higher Propylene prices meant that suppliers had continued to pass on increased production costs of Butyric Acid to downstream customers.

Late March 2025, however, witnessed a significant drop of approximately 4.5% in the prices of feedstock Propylene as supply conditions in the feedstock Propylene market improved, resulting in a decline in production costs. The drop in feedstock Propylene prices was driven by improved cracker run rates across the European market, recovering from historically low levels of 60% to 65% reported in Q4 2024, which had persisted until the end of Q1 2025. With many Fluids Catalytic Crackers (FCC) increasing run rates at the end of March 2025 and some returning from prolonged force majeures, the European Propylene contract price for April 2025 dropped by EUR 55/ton. This shift in pricing led to a change in market sentiment from anxious to cautious, bringing further stability to the market, as customers awaited the fall in manufacturing costs to take effect in the Butyric Acid prices in the upcoming weeks

Meanwhile, suppliers in France were largely working off existing inventories of Butyric Acid, which had remained backlogged from February and March 2025. As a result, they held their quotations stable through the last week of March, ending on March 28, 2025. However, bottlenecks continued to persist, with strikes still affecting operations at French ports. After repeated strike actions throughout January, February, and March at all French ports, unions suspended their strikes as of March 17 following an invitation from the Prime Minister to reopen discussions on pension reform. Most unions withdrew from negotiations and, after general meetings across all French ports, decided to implement stronger actions, including a 72-hour full stoppage in all French ports on April 2, 3, and 4, 2025, including at the Port of Le Havre, followed by a 48-hour full stoppage every week in the following weeks. These disruptions continued to increase lead times for deliveries and hindered the circulation of inventories of Butyric Acid arriving from Germany.

In terms of demand, conditions for Butyric Acid remained unfavorable as demand from the animal feed industry is expected to decline in Q2 2025. As part of a broader EU trend, livestock production is forecast to decline by 1.6% to 2.6 million head, according to data released by Eurostat. This continued to exert downward pressure on prices. Demand from the food and flavoring industry also remained subdued, as France’s consumer confidence indicator fell to 92 in March 2025 from 93 in February 2025, according to data released by INSEE.

Heading into April 2025, Butyric Acid prices across the French market and the broader European market are expected to show minimal fluctuations. While the expected depreciation in feedstock Propylene prices may provide some relief, internal logistical bottlenecks are likely to continue to impart an upward influence due to heightened transportation costs and delays in inventory arrivals of Butyric Acid amid further looming strikes.