Western Europe’s Trade in HDPE in 2018

Trends in Western Europe’s HDPE intra-regional trade, exports and imports indicated a long position for the region by yearend 2018.

Western Europe’s intra-regional trade in HDPE was 3.4 million tons in 2018, unchanged from 2017 based on latest available data.

Imports from other regions rose just 1%, to 1.8 million tons, but there were big shifts among sources of supply: imports from North America doubled; there were higher volumes also from Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America; imports from the Middle East, although still the largest volume, declined, as did imports from Asia-Pacific.

Western Europe exported 1.26 million tons of HDPE in 2018, up 10% from 2017. Shipments to Eastern Europe were flat; Asia-Pacific and Africa were high growth export destinations.

Flat intra-regional trade, a minor increase in imports and a sizable increase in exports indicated a long position for the region by the end of 2018.

From International Trader Publications’ HDPE World Trade Report, an online Report updated daily with statistics from 80 countries.