European Chemicals-Basic chemical demand trends:seasonality not so obvious in July

July trends: summer slowdown not obvious in Europe, Asia mixed, US robust

    We see varied demand trends across regions through July. The usual summerslowdown seems to be less pronounced in Europe with strong ethylenemargins (up 21% over June) and high benzene to naphtha spread supported bygood underlying demand and lower feedstock prices. US was robust supportedby the domestic economy although supply/demand balances were impacted byoutages in upstream/downstream chains. Asian region saw improvement insome product chains (e.g. propylene, benzene) but weakness in others (e.g.butadiene) although product pricing was supported by outages offsetting theimpact of lower feedstock prices.