Southeast Asia methanol prices hit record highs.European prices surge 47% amid supply worries.US prices climb 18% on uptick in spot liquidity.

HOUSTON (ICIS)–Spot rates for US chemical tankers ex-US Gulf surged this week as the conflict in the Middle East has tightened chemical supply in Europe and has caused a shortage of space in the US Gulf-to-Europe trade lane, while Asia-US container rates edged higher as the conflicts impact on container shipping is a rapidly evolving situation and uncertainty remains massive.

Source: ChemNet With less than two weeks remaining until the official cancellation of the 13% export VAT rebate policy on April 1, 2026, the Chinese polyether polyol market has already ushered in a significant round of structural price adjustments.

Source: ChemNet On March 22, Changhua Chemical Technology Co., Ltd. officially commissioned the world's first industrial-scale 80,000-ton-per-year low-temperature and low-pressure carbon dioxide polyether production facility at the Lianyungang Petrochemical Industrial Base within the National East-West Regional Cooperation Demonstration Zone (Xuwei New District, Lianyungang). This milestone signifies China's global leadership in the high-value utilization of carbon dioxide resources.

Source: ChemNet On March 23, global chemical giant BASF announced that effective immediately or as contract terms permit, it will uniformly increase prices for MDI and TDI products in East Asia (excluding Mainland China) by $500 per ton.

Source: ChemNet The US-Iran conflict continues to escalate, severely disrupting the global energy transport key chokepoint, the Strait of Hormuz, with commercial vessel traffic plummeting dramatically, forcing a restructuring of the energy transport landscape.