North America’s trade in commodity polymers in 2024 was characterized by large volume exports of polyethylene, polypropylene and PVC, and relatively small imports. This series of blogs quantifies imports and exports in 2024 of the major commodity polymers – LDPE, linear/ethylene-alpha-olefin copolymers (LL/EAOC), HDPE, EVA, PP, propylene copolymers (PRC), polystyrene and PVC – allowing comparisons across the polymers for the geographic regions of Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Africa, North America, Latin America, Middle East and Asia-Pacific.

North America’s exports of LDPE, LL/EAOC and HDPE each expanded 4%-9% in 2024. There were large percentage increases on shipments to Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Afrcia and Latin America but declines of 6%-9% to Asia-Pacific. North America’s exports of polypropylene to Latin America, its largest volume destination, posted a small gain but this was offset by lower shipments to Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe and Africa. Propylene copolymer exports, however, were higher to all regions except Middle East. Exports of PVC to Europe dropped because of the imposition of anti-dumping duties on US polymer. Exports to Asia-Pacific fell as new capacity in China increasingly supplied that region.

North America’s imports of each of the commodity polymers in 2024 were up versus 2023. Latin America supplied higher volumes of each polymer except PVC. Western Europe supplied higher volumes of polyethylene and polypropylene, excluding HDPE. Of note was a surge in imports of propylene copolymers from Asia-Pacific, mainly South Korea and Singapore, volume up 57%.

From International Trader Publications’ continuously updated World Trade Analyses of all grades of commodity polymers.