Rising n-Hexane Price, Netherlands Solvent Players Under Pressure

Rotterdam, Netherlands: This week, the n-Hexane prices rallied uphill across the European region. Overall inflation is observed to be rising in the country with the continuing Russia-Ukrainian conflict, which is the primary factor for the n-Hexane’s substantial price hike. Also, the bullish export demand has been the driving factor propelling the solvent market growth.

The geopolitical tension continued to accelerate in the region, hampering the solvent market dynamics from February. Recently, the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air revealed that the Netherlands imported Crude oil worth more than 7.8 billion euros from Russia since the conflict began. Additionally, as per our sources, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, purchased more natural gas and oil in short-term markets during the previous month. While Germany, in contrast, imported reduced volumes due to the summer season.

On the other hand, economic growth in the Netherlands has been slowing down with soaring energy costs and the ongoing Ukraine crisis. The fifth-largest European economy’s growth rate has declined by approximately 3 per cent this year, which is directly affecting the domestic manufacturers of all the commodities. Notably, the crude derivative n-Hexane players were dealing with higher inflationary pressure associated with skyrocketing upstream crude oil value, insufficient raw material supplies, surged production costs, and transportation constraints.

Meanwhile, the downstream solvent industrial consumption inclined sharply with strong terminal demand from the overseas market. Also, the offtakes from the domestic oil extraction sector have been reported to be strong over the past few weeks in Europe. As a result, the FOB Rotterdam price discussions remained buoyant during the third week of June.

As per ChemAnalyst, the price trend for n-Hexane in the Netherlands is expected to stabilize in the coming weeks. With increasing crude oil imports, the production activities are likely to boost, which would gradually ease the supply-side concerns of the domestic solvent manufacturers. Furthermore, the robust export demand from the international market is expected to be met with healthy operating rates of the crude dependent factories.”