For one reason or another supply of PVC in several regions around the world has been disrupted over the last six months. In Europe, the region saw an unprecedented number of outages during the third and fourth quarter, when at times almost every single producer in the region was struggling with some production issues. In the US, the hurricanes that hit the US Gulf from late August to October severely impacted supply in late summer and autumn. As Europe and especially North America are the largest exporting regions for PVC in the world their shortages woes have significant implications in supply in other regions. The situation in both regions started to improve in January, as the Christmas holidays provided some much a needed opportunity to replenish stocks and suppliers and buyers alike were looking forward to some normality. However, these hopes have been thrown into disarray by the severe disruption caused by the deep freeze in the US Gulf and another spate of production issues at se...

R-22 prices dipped slightly to Rs242/kg (down 5.8% QoQ / up 36.4%) in Q4FY22, but volumes were down 34% YoY to just 3.7kte, which suggests pressure on prices will continue. This means SRF’s ref-gas revenue and EBIT margin benefits are coming entirely from the HFC portfolio. Some volume impact is due to shutdown of Gujarat Fluorochemicals’ (GFL) plant, but we are not worried as companies sell their entire quota allocated for full year. In the packaging film segment, spreads have increased for both BOPET and BOPP. This is despite anticipation of spreads contracting due to new capacity expansion. We expect higher margins to continue helping SRF’s domestic packaging film business. Lauryl alcohol price rose again in Mar’22 and is now at Rs191, up 21.5% QoQ. Inflation in Rossari Biotech’s four key raw materials has kept the company’s margins under pressure. Pigment prices have increased (good for Sudarshan Chemical) on QoQ basis, but RM inflation looks fa...