Europe’s propylene oxide deficit narrowed in 2026, and not because domestic supply came back. EU27 imports from outside the bloc fell to 123,608 tonnes in January–August 2026, 21.8% below the same eight months of 2025, while exports more than doubled to 22,026 tonnes; the external shortfall fell from 148,300 to 101,600 tonnes. The price relationship inverted: in January–August 2026 export unit values averaged EUR 1,516 per tonne against EUR 1,305 on imports, a 16.2% premium, where in the same months of 2025 they were within 0.4%. That is what a region with a shrinking but still integrated oxide base looks like in customs data.
Data updated: 2026-10-23
Latest 12 months: imports thin out, exports concentrate
The table below covers EU27 trade with partners outside the EU in propylene oxide under CN 2910 20 00, monthly, from September 2025 to August 2026. This is the latest twelve-month window in the Eurostat Comext series, which was refreshed on 16 October 2026 and now runs to August 2026. Values are declared customs values, so the unit value column is a transaction-weighted average of what importers and exporters actually booked, not a published contract or assessment price.
| Month | Imports (t) | Import unit value (EUR/t) | Exports (t) | Export unit value (EUR/t) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-09 | 15,416 | 1,260 | 5,778 | 1,245 |
| 2025-10 | 9,536 | 1,240 | 820 | 1,433 |
| 2025-11 | 16,987 | 1,243 | 816 | 1,481 |
| 2025-12 | 8,679 | 1,263 | 608 | 1,402 |
| 2026-01 | 18,494 | 1,260 | 3,719 | 1,259 |
| 2026-02 | 15,195 | 1,252 | 785 | 1,331 |
| 2026-03 | 23,164 | 1,196 | 5,678 | 1,253 |
| 2026-04 | 21,161 | 1,291 | 886 | 1,728 |
| 2026-05 | 17,170 | 1,313 | 8,960 | 1,738 |
| 2026-06 | 14,997 | 1,468 | 792 | 1,786 |
| 2026-07 | 2,997 | 1,234 | 612 | 1,706 |
| 2026-08 | 10,430 | 1,508 | 593 | 1,674 |
Four features matter more than the monthly noise. The import side trends down inside the window — 174,226 tonnes against 208,623 for calendar 2025 — with the weakest months at the end, March excepted. Import unit values rose from EUR 1,196 per tonne in March 2026 to EUR 1,508 in August, a 26.1% move in five months, far larger than anything in 2025. Exports are lumpy: May 2026 alone carried 8,960 tonnes, 29.8% of the twelve-month volume, and the four largest months carry 80.3%. And July 2026 shows both flows falling at once, to 2,997 tonnes in and 612 out — the signature of a reporting gap, not a one-month halt, so treat that month as provisional.
Annual comparison: a smaller deficit on both sides of the ledger
Comparing eight months with eight months removes the seasonality that makes December and January look dramatic. On that basis the import book lost 34,397 tonnes and the export book gained 12,274 tonnes, so the deficit shrank by 46,671 tonnes, or 31.5%.
| Period | Imports (t) | Import value (EUR m) | Import unit value (EUR/t) | Exports (t) | Export value (EUR m) | Export unit value (EUR/t) | Net deficit (t) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 (Jan–Dec) | 208,623 | 278.2 | 1,333 | 17,774 | 23.6 | 1,328 | 190,849 |
| 2025 (Jan–Aug) | 158,005 | 214.8 | 1,360 | 9,752 | 13.2 | 1,351 | 148,253 |
| 2026 (Jan–Aug) | 123,608 | 161.3 | 1,305 | 22,026 | 33.4 | 1,516 | 101,582 |
| Change, 8M to 8M | −21.8% | −24.9% | −4.0% | +125.9% | +153.6% | +12.3% | −31.5% |
The value columns move further than the volume columns, and in opposite directions. Import spending fell 24.9% while volume fell 21.8%, so the average parcel got cheaper. Export revenue rose 153.6% while volume rose 125.9%, so the average parcel got dearer. That is the arithmetic behind the premium: EUR 211 per tonne more earned on the way out than paid on the way in, against a EUR 9 discount in the same months of 2025.
Who supplies Europe: a one-origin book becomes a two-origin book
Extra-EU propylene oxide imports were effectively single-origin until the end of 2025: every month from January to December was supplied by the United States, with China contributing 23 tonnes in January. Saudi Arabia did not appear. That changed in January 2026 with a first parcel of 1,500 tonnes, and the flow built through the first half — 2,498 tonnes in February, 4,280 in March, 2,797 in April, 3,048 in May and 4,812 in June. China shipped 498 tonnes in April and 1,165 in May, nothing since.
| Origin | Jan–Aug 2025 (t) | Share | Latest 12 months (t) | Share | Latest unit value (EUR/t) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 157,981 | 100.0% | 151,276 | 86.8% | 1,305 |
| Saudi Arabia | 0 | 0.0% | 21,283 | 12.2% | 1,177 |
| China | 23 | 0.0% | 1,663 | 1.0% | 1,294 |
| All other origins | 1 | 0.0% | 4 | 0.0% | n/r |
| Extra-EU total | 158,005 | 100% | 174,226 | 100% | 1,289 |
The second source is cheaper: Saudi material cleared at EUR 1,177 per tonne against EUR 1,305 for US material, a 9.8% discount, in a market where both origins are chemically identical and arrive by tanker. And the entry is recent enough that a buyer’s approved-vendor list may not have caught up: in January–August 2026 Saudi Arabia supplied 21,283 tonnes, 17.2% of the 123,608-tonne import book, in eight consecutive months.
The export side is the mirror image, and it is more surprising. In January–August 2025 the EU’s exports went mostly to the United Kingdom (4,902 t, 50.3%) and Switzerland (2,675 t, 27.4%), with the United States taking 2,099 tonnes in a single month. Across the latest twelve months the United States took 19,903 tonnes, 66.2% of the total, with the UK at 5,847 tonnes and Switzerland at 4,206 tonnes. Those US-bound parcels are lumpy rather than steady: 4,650 tonnes in September 2025, 2,728 in January 2026, 4,497 in March and 8,024 in May, and effectively nothing in the other eight months.
| Destination | Jan–Aug 2025 (t) | Share | Latest 12 months (t) | Share | Latest unit value (EUR/t) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 2,099 | 21.5% | 19,903 | 66.2% | 1,429 |
| United Kingdom | 4,902 | 50.3% | 5,847 | 19.5% | 1,542 |
| Switzerland | 2,675 | 27.4% | 4,206 | 14.0% | 1,455 |
| All other destinations | 76 | 0.8% | 92 | 0.3% | n/r |
| Extra-EU total | 9,752 | 100% | 30,048 | 100% | 1,459 |
Analysis. The EU and the US trade propylene oxide in both directions in the same year, at volumes that cannot both be explained by comparative advantage in the molecule. This is what integrated supply chains look like when a product is made at a handful of sites and distributed through a few coastal hubs: material moves to whichever affiliate needs it, and customs records a shuttle rather than a market. For a European buyer, import availability therefore depends less on European demand than on whether the transatlantic spread covers freight — a price relationship, not a volume one.
Global supply: the Netherlands lost 229,000 tonnes of exports in five years
The annual panel explains where the European contraction came from. Across the twelve reporting economies tracked here, the European reporters all lost volume and the United States gained. On a like-for-like basis — the eight reporters that filed both years with net weight — exports fell 17.0%, from 1.019 to 0.845 million tonnes, and the average unit value slipped 3.2% to USD 1,300 per tonne.
| Reporter | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2025 unit value (USD/t) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 224.3 | 132.3 | 122.3 | 332.8 | 300.5 | 314.0 | 1,145 |
| Netherlands | 377.8 | 388.5 | 360.9 | 294.0 | 248.8 | 148.5 | 1,483 |
| Thailand | 101.7 | 183.2 | 145.3 | 130.2 | 140.6 | 102.6 | 1,129 |
| Germany | 174.8 | 233.5 | 142.8 | 112.7 | 101.8 | 104.1 | 1,746 |
| Belgium | 99.2 | 90.8 | 48.5 | 39.2 | 105.9 | 79.6 | 1,542 |
| Saudi Arabia | 142.0 | 210.9 | 189.9 | 134.2 | 64.9 | 75.0 | 1,026 |
| Korea | 124.4 | 117.4 | 66.8 | 38.3 | 42.7 | 12.0 | 995 |
| China | 4.1 | n/r | 11.8 | n/r | 13.4 | 9.2 | 1,062 |
| Singapore | 106.6 | n/r | 41.1 | n/r | n/r | n/r | n/r |
| Taiwan | 3.3 | 0.6 | 0.4 | 0.6 | 0.7 | n/r | n/r |
| Japan | 3.7 | 0.2 | 3.9 | n/r | 0.0 | n/r | n/r |
| Russia | n/r | 0.0 | n/r | n/r | n/r | n/r | n/r |
The direction of the European numbers is unambiguous. Dutch exports fell from 377,800 tonnes in 2020 to 148,500 in 2025, a loss of 229,300 tonnes or 60.7%, from the ports that handle most of the continent’s oxychemical trade. German exports fell 40.4% to 104,100 tonnes, Belgian 19.8% to 79,600, and Korea’s from 124,400 to 12,000. The offsetting growth is American: US exports rose from 224,300 tonnes to 314,000, +40.0%, making the US the largest single exporter in this panel.
Unit values tell a second story. German material left at USD 1,746 per tonne in 2025, Belgian at USD 1,542 and Dutch at USD 1,483, against USD 1,145 for US, USD 1,129 for Thai and USD 1,026 for Saudi material. Europe’s remaining exports are the expensive end — specialty grades and small lots — while the volume business sits with producers shipping in thousand-tonne parcels.
US monthly exports: the other side of the shuttle
US monthly filings give an independent check on the second-quarter price move seen in the European import series. American exports ran 22,400–27,700 tonnes a month from January to April 2026 at USD 1,099–1,191 per tonne, then 16,600 tonnes at USD 1,440 in May and 19,400 tonnes at USD 1,348 in June. In other words, the same two months in which EU import unit values jumped from EUR 1,291 to EUR 1,468 per tonne, US export realisations rose by 21–31%. Two independent customs systems, two currencies, same direction.
| Month | Volume (kt) | Unit value (USD/t) |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-01 | 22.4 | 1,191 |
| 2026-02 | 26.4 | 1,125 |
| 2026-03 | 27.7 | 1,099 |
| 2026-04 | 22.3 | 1,117 |
| 2026-05 | 16.6 | 1,440 |
| 2026-06 | 19.4 | 1,348 |
None of this says propylene oxide is scarce in Europe. It says the merchant market has narrowed to a transatlantic corridor with a new Gulf supplier, and that the corridor prices off the US Gulf rather than off European production cost — which is why capacity and import price have to be read together.
The value chain around the molecule is covered in our product library: the feedstock side in propylene and propylene feedstock gas, the molecule itself in propylene oxide, and the two dominant derivatives in polyether polyol and propylene glycol.
What closed, and what the customs data cannot see
Europe’s propylene oxide map lost a node in September 2025. INEOS decided to stop producing propylene oxide and propylene glycol at its Cologne site, where the PO unit has a nameplate capacity of 210,000 tonnes a year and runs the chlorohydrin route; the plant had already been idle since a fire at Chempark Dormagen in July 2025 interrupted the chlorine supply it depends on. The decision was reported by Urethanes Technology International on 22 September 2025: energy and chlorine costs against import competition.
The wider context is quantified. Cefic’s European Chemical Closures & Investments Radar 2022–2025, prepared by Roland Berger and published on 28 January 2026, counts 37 million tonnes of chemical capacity closed in Europe since 2022 — around 9% of European production capacity — with 20,000 direct jobs lost. Announced investment capacity fell from 2.7 million tonnes in 2022 to 0.3 million tonnes year-to-date in 2025. A 210,000-tonne PO unit is a rounding error against 37 million tonnes; as a molecule it is not, because the plants that consume it sit next door.
Analysis. Three readings of the 2026 numbers are possible and the customs data cannot choose between them. Demand: if European polyurethane and resin output fell faster than domestic PO capacity, imports would fall even with less local supply, which is what the import line shows. Integration: PO is mostly consumed captively, so a closure at an integrated site removes supply and demand together, and only the merchant residual reaches the border. Reporting: the July gap shows the series is not immune to filing problems, so one weak quarter should not be over-read.
Outlook. The one signal that is hard to explain away is the price. Import unit values climbed from EUR 1,196 per tonne in March 2026 to EUR 1,508 per tonne in August while volumes were falling — scarcity pricing, not a buyers’ market. Export realisations moved higher still, to EUR 1,728–1,786 per tonne between April and June 2026. If European producers can sell outside the bloc above the price at which material enters it, the remaining capacity is being allocated to the customers who pay most — a hierarchy that should persist while capacity keeps leaving.
What this means for buyers
Propylene oxide is bought either as a merchant parcel or, far more often, embedded in a derivative. Both routes are affected differently by the shift above.
- Merchant buyers should treat the export premium as an early warning. When the average export parcel clears above the average import parcel across a full twelve months, the domestic book is priced off export parity, and a buyer benchmarking only against import offers will be behind.
- Derivative buyers — polyether polyol for foam, propylene glycol for resin, antifreeze and de-icing, glycol ethers for coatings — should map which suppliers are integrated back to PO and which buy merchant tonnes. The integrated ones did not lose supply in September 2025; the merchant ones did.
- Qualification lead times argue for starting now: a new PO or PG source needs hazard classification, transport approval for a toxic, flammable oxide and usually a customer-side trial. A shrinking European capacity base is not a good window in which to begin.
- Watch the origin mix, not just the total. A falling import total can hide a rising dependence on one or two suppliers; the origin table above is the check, and it is the first thing to re-read when a quarterly review comes round.
Data limitations
- Propylene oxide is largely consumed captively at the site where it is produced. Customs measure only the merchant residual crossing a border, so these volumes understate production and consumption by an unknown margin.
- July 2026 shows imports of 2,997 tonnes and exports of 612 tonnes — the weakest reading in both series. Both falling together points to a filing or confidentiality effect rather than a physical halt, so treat that month as provisional.
- Declared customs values are border transaction values: they include freight and insurance on the import side and exclude them on the export side, mix grades and packaging, and are not contract prices.
- China is incomplete rather than absent: 2025 is reported (9.2 kt) but 2021 and 2023 carry no net weight, so Chinese unit values cannot be computed there and the 2025 panel total is a like-for-like subset of eight reporters, not a world figure.
- Eurostat suppresses some bilateral detail for confidentiality. Where a partner is missing from a month, it is not necessarily zero trade.
- India’s monthly filings show negligible exports (414 kg in January 2026, 53 kg in May, no records in the other four months checked), so India is not a usable monthly comparator here.
Data sources
- Eurostat Comext, dataset DS-045409, reporter EU27_2020, partner EXT_EU27_2020 and partner breakdown, product 291020, indicators VALUE_IN_EUROS and QUANTITY_IN_100KG, monthly 2025-01 to 2026-08; series extracted 23 October 2026, dataset updated 16 October 2026. Eurostat databrowser, DS-045409.
- UN Comtrade, annual exports of HS 291020 by reporter, 2020–2025, twelve reporters: annual query, United States 2025.
- UN Comtrade, monthly exports of HS 291020 for the United States and India, January–June 2026: monthly query, United States, June 2026.
- Cefic, “Chemical plant closures rate surges six-fold in Europe since 2022, new report finds”, 28 January 2026: Cefic news release; the underlying report, European Chemical Closures & Investments Radar 2022–2025 (Roland Berger for Cefic): Cefic resource page.
- Urethanes Technology International, “Ineos to stop PO production in Cologne”, 22 September 2025: article. The 210,000 t/yr nameplate, the chlorohydrin process and the July 2025 Chempark Dormagen chlorine interruption are as reported there.
PetroApex maintains these series for every product in its library. If you need the underlying monthly workbook, a partner split beyond the three origins shown here, or a custom cut for a specific CN code or period, request a sample report or a tailored dataset and we will send the specification and source list.