According to recently received data from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), ethylene production has fallen to 551,200 tons in April from 570,000 tons in the same month of the previous year, to register a fall of 3.3 percent.
This has come about after ethylene production had declined in double digits for the seventh consecutive month. Petrochemical production has been hit very badly since the unveiling of the economic crisis, leading to a slowdown.
This has happened despite the fact that several ethylene producers raised their operating capacities in April, to meet the demand emanating from the Chinese markets. METI has also confirmed that there were no maintenance related shutdowns in the month.
Japanese METI had announced that ethylene production for March 2009 had increased to 504,700 ton with a rise of approximately 44 percent, when compared to in February, but had dropped 13.8 percent in March from a year earlier.
But this a better development than in the month of February when ethylene output had crashed by 23.7 percent year on year in February, a double digit fall in Japan's ethylene production for the sixth consecutive month.
Click here to view ethylene price trends in last 12 months.
Fibre2fashion News Desk - India