The second wave of corona came indeed. Despite corona, the demand from the industry (especially automotive) recovered rapidly as from the middle of august. The polymer industry was all of a sudden overwhelmed with orders, whereas the production of polymers was not planned in line with the sudden (much) higher need of polymers. The result was not a surprise: shortage of virtually all kind of materials. At the same time China was ahead of Europe as far as recovery of the economy was concerned and was not able to export materials to Europe. On the contrary: Europe exported to China. 

Especially ABS and other Styrene polymers became short, not only due to lacking imports from China, but also due to production factory maintenance at some producers. Due to a lack of raw materials for the production of polyamide also PA6 and PA66 became short. In general producers of engineering polymers had to increase lead-times enormously and subsequently prices went up or tend to go up.

For the next period it will be very important to have a good planning and if possible to work with call-off orders in order to be able to have more stability and to avoid hick-ups in production of parts.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us and to check with us the latest availability situation.