European Chemicals: Chemical conditions tool: I ran out of momentum

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European Chemicals: Chemical conditions tool: I ran out of momentum

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European Chemicals

Chemical conditions tool: I ran out of

momentum

Industry Overview

Language score anticipates Hormuz re-opens soon 04 June 2026

We monitor chemical trading conditions using a proprietary natural language processing Equity

tool that creates a sentiment score from news flow in a leading industry journal (ICIS). Europe

Key finding: trading conditions lost momentum in May with only with 43% of positive Chemicals

words vs. 57% in April. In fact, the second half of May recorded only 34%.

After the April restock, comes the Summer destock?

Perhaps in anticipation of an imminent peace deal and re-opening of the Hormuz Strait,

spot chemical prices have been giving back a large share of prior gains. Having perhaps

over-ordered in April to secure supply, ICIS news stories indicate customers have turned

cautious on holding inventory in anticipation of lower feedstock costs, better product

availability from suppliers and (possibly) weaker underlying demand at customers.

China’s manufacturing new order PMI went back below 50 last month. ICIS quoted some Matthew Yates >>

distributors in Europe as saying they were surprised about the good availability of Research Analyst

MLI (UK)

chemical imports from Asia, which were previously assumed to be curtailed by run cuts. +44 20 7996 4537

It would appear industry utilisation rates have been supported by the drawdown of matthew.yates@bofa.com

strategic oil reserves, rejuvenated coal-based crackers and the pivot of refining capacity John Campbell >>

Research Analyst

away from transportation fuels given electric vehicles are now >60% of new car sales in MLI (UK)

China.