AKRON, OHIO — A recent North American price decline for solid polystyrene resin is featured in this week's Material Insights video.
Solid PS prices fell an average of 2 cents per pound in July, due in part to a 9 percent drop in the price of benzene feedstock that took place between May and July. Higher benzene prices in August could send PS prices up in August or September, sources said. North American solid PS sales were flat in the first four months of 2013.
A court case involving three PET firms also is featured in this week's video. Invista and Indorama Polymers are claiming victory in the case, which claims that M&G Group violated an Invista patent for Polyshield PET barrier resin. Indorama licenses the technology at a plant in Spartanburg, S.C. M&G plans to appeal the case in U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Del., with M&G CEO Marco Ghisolfi saying that Invista's news release about the case is misleading.
The video wraps up with a look at the 2013 stock performances of 17 publicly held materials firms. 15 of those 17 had higher per-share prices as of mid-August than they did on Jan. 1. Big winners among that group were PolyOne, DuPont, Westlake and Hexcel, each which saw their stock prices rise 31-43 percent.