The Fragmentation of Global Polymer Markets Subtitle: Moving Beyond Asia-Linked Benchmarks in a Supply-Constrained Era

The global polymer pricing architecture is experiencing an unprecedented structural fracture, marked by a complete decoupling between formulaic "paper" benchmarks and the reality of physical spot markets. The historic reliance on Asia-linked netbacks to define Middle Eastern polymer valuations is fundamentally breaking down. Market data reveals a massive $260 to $325/mt divergence between calculated Free on Board (FOB) Middle East netbacks and actual physical FOB Saudi Arabia transactions.