Plastic Resin prices are not directly linked to either oil barrel or petrol pricing, but in broad terms they tend to be closely aligned.

We have seen two years of steadily increasing resin costs with little likelihood of prices easing.

Oil barrel pricing was predicted to never pass through the $100 per barrel mark, but it is now at $142.99 and increasing. There are so many drivers to the pricing unrelated to the actual source price of oil.

Summary drivers include, political uncertainty in the Arab region, Iran's desire to produce nuclear power, Nigeria's political unrest and theft, China and India's fast rise in consumerism and affluence with motor vehicles and the drop in USD has seen many traders treating oil as a future stock.

Reportedly OPEC are releasing supplies greater than demand, but this has not caused the traders to dump oil stocks, so prices are still climbing.

When this oil pricing is translated to its related product of plastic resins (ethylene), pricing is again driven by ethylene costs, global capacity to manufacture resins, global demand for plastic products (huge growth in China and India) and our lovely friends the spot buyers and traders.

Attached is a graph of typical resin prices in Asia. These may not be exact figures but reflect the buy price of several Cormack suppliers in China. Do not use this as an exact resin cost, but it does give a good reflection on plastic raw material prices for PP Resins in Asia over the last 2 years. Prices do vary based on grade of PP and volumes.