Versalis declares force majeure (FM) on polystyrene (PS), according to a letter sent last week to clients.
The company noted that it had suffered an incident on 15 September at its plant in Mantua.
Because of the issue, Versalis declared FM on general purpose polystyrene (GPPS).
What is more, Versalis expects the FM to last for a minimum of one month.
The company has declared FM also on acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) because of the incident.
This event will keep ABS supply critically short in Europe, a situation that continues since the beginning of 2021.
While for PS, the market could move from good availability to relative tightness in the next few weeks.
Meanwhile, both markets saw lower costs recently but this could change as volatility continues to characterize upstream markets.
For example, crude oil prices will likely place upward pressure on costs, having increased from below $70/bbl a few weeks ago to $79/bbl.