EU27 imports of cyclohexane from outside the bloc fell 80% to 62,854 tonnes in the twelve months to August 2026, from 315,256 tonnes in the previous twelve months, and 82% in January–August alone. The fall is one lane, not a market. Arrivals declared from Saudi Arabia dropped 92.8% to 11,966 tonnes in January–August 2026, from 167,257 tonnes a year earlier, while the United States became the EU’s largest external supplier at 20,325 tonnes and 56.2% of what remains. The blended import unit value rose 8.0% to EUR 976 per tonne, and that is weighting rather than price: the Saudi lane cleared at EUR 798 per tonne, 9.9% below its 2025 average, the US lane at EUR 1,034, 20.5% above.
Data updated: 2026-10-29
Latest 12 months: the regime changed inside the window
The table covers HS 290211, EU27 trade with partners outside the bloc, September 2025 to August 2026, the newest complete window in Eurostat Comext (dataset refreshed 16 October 2026). Unit values are declared value divided by net mass.
| Month | Imports (t) | Import unit value (EUR/t) | Exports (t) | Export unit value (EUR/t) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-09 | 11,711 | 762 | 86 | 3,021 |
| 2025-10 | 4,969 | 727 | 489 | 966 |
| 2025-11 | 9,307 | 686 | 201 | 1,420 |
| 2025-12 | 695 | 749 | 279 | 1,181 |
| 2026-01 | 908 | 838 | 99 | 2,470 |
| 2026-02 | 6,148 | 787 | 189 | 1,691 |
| 2026-03 | 7,177 | 771 | 117 | 2,249 |
| 2026-04 | 4,915 | 888 | 185 | 1,980 |
| 2026-05 | 3,708 | 1,020 | 175 | 1,722 |
| 2026-06 | 3,432 | 1,457 | 187 | 2,082 |
| 2026-07 | 9,494 | 1,117 | 175 | 2,317 |
| 2026-08 | 388 | 1,063 | 102 | 2,435 |
| Total | 62,854 | 871 | 2,283 | 1,701 |
Twelve-month totals hide the break. The first three months of the window ran at 11,711, 4,969 and 9,307 tonnes, a median of 9,307. From December 2025 to August 2026 the monthly median is 3,708 tonnes, and five of those nine months printed below 4,000 tonnes. August 2026, at 388 tonnes, is the lowest month since this series began in 2023 and is provisional.
Unit values moved in steps rather than trends: EUR 686 in November 2025, EUR 771 in March 2026, EUR 1,457 in June, EUR 1,063 in August. A twelve-month average of EUR 871 describes none of those months. It sits 8.2% below the previous window’s EUR 948 for one reason only — the cheap lane that used to set the average is no longer in it.
Exports are a rounding error beside imports: 2,283 tonnes in the twelve months, 53.6% less than the prior window, at EUR 1,701 per tonne, 29.2% higher. The EU bought 27.5 tonnes for every tonne it sold outside the bloc, so this is not a trading position unwinding. It is a consumer region losing an external supply route.
The annual series: 2025 had already turned
The collapse did not begin in 2026. It began after the 2022 peak and accelerated through 2025, the last year with a complete annual record.
| Year | Imports (t) | Import unit value (EUR/t) | Exports (t) | Export unit value (EUR/t) | Net balance (t) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 463,070 | 709 | 5,033 | 1,137 | −458,038 |
| 2020 | 401,957 | 554 | 3,993 | 919 | −397,965 |
| 2021 | 521,847 | 911 | 4,415 | 1,293 | −517,432 |
| 2022 | 443,315 | 1,289 | 4,479 | 1,437 | −438,836 |
| 2023 | 282,062 | 1,037 | 4,360 | 1,475 | −277,702 |
| 2024 | 374,632 | 1,116 | 4,913 | 1,862 | −369,718 |
| 2025 | 228,931 | 883 | 4,038 | 1,274 | −224,893 |
Imports peaked at 521,847 tonnes in 2021, fell to 282,062 in 2023, recovered to 374,632 in 2024 and then lost 38.9% in 2025 to 228,931 tonnes, at a unit value 20.9% lower. The latest twelve months, at 62,854 tonnes, are 86.2% below the 2020–2022 average of 455,706 tonnes.
The decline is persistent rather than a single-year artefact, and it has run through three price regimes: EUR 1,289 per tonne in 2022, EUR 1,116 in 2024, EUR 883 in 2025. The export book never absorbed the surplus — 4,038 tonnes in 2025, 1.8% of imports — and the 2026 run rate is an annualised 54,000 tonnes.
Origins: the Saudi lane empties and one origin takes 56%
Concentration was always high, but the ranking has inverted inside eighteen months.
| Origin | 2024 (t) | 2025 (t) | Share 2025 | Unit value 2025 (EUR/t) | Jan–Aug 2026 (t) | Share 2026 | Unit value 2026 (EUR/t) | Change in volume |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Saudi Arabia | 226,412 | 187,330 | 81.8% | 886 | 11,966 | 33.1% | 798 | −92.8% |
| United States | 102,279 | 41,296 | 18.0% | 858 | 20,325 | 56.2% | 1,034 | −41.7% |
| Other non-EU | 45,941 | 305 | 0.1% | n/r | 3,880 | 10.7% | n/r | n/m |
| Total extra-EU | 374,632 | 228,931 | 100.0% | 883 | 36,171 | 100.0% | 976 | −82.1% |
Saudi-origin arrivals ran between 12,739 and 27,202 tonnes a month through the first half of 2025, printed 26,810 tonnes in August 2025, then fell to 11,666 in September, 2,882 in October, 4,865 in November and 660 in December. In 2026 they were 875 tonnes in January, 6,144 in February, 3,105 in March, and under 900 tonnes in every month from April to August.
The United States did not replace that volume; it became the largest part of what was left. US-origin arrivals fell 41.7% to 20,325 tonnes in January–August 2026, but the Saudi collapse lifted the US share from 18.0% to 56.2%. Thailand appears at 2,990 tonnes and Argentina at 784; every other non-EU origin is below 100 tonnes. In August 2026 the US lane itself recorded no volume, and the entire extra-EU book was 388 tonnes.
Read the prices by lane, not on the blend. Saudi material cleared at EUR 798 per tonne in 2026 against EUR 886 in 2025, a 9.9% fall; US material at EUR 1,034 against EUR 858, a 20.5% rise. The blended average rose 8.0% because a cheaper lane shrank out of the mix, and a contract indexed to that blend is indexed to a composition change, not to a market.
The mirror test: the barrels did not disappear in January
Saudi Arabia files its own export returns. In January 2026 it declared 22,019 tonnes of HS 290211 to the world at USD 889 per tonne, and 8,000 tonnes in February at the same value. The EU recorded 875 tonnes of Saudi-origin arrivals in January and 6,144 tonnes in February. In January, at least, the molecule left Saudi Arabia and did not arrive in Europe.
After February there is no Saudi monthly record in the Comtrade preview for March to August 2026. A missing record is a filing gap, not a zero, so the destination cannot be tracked month by month. The annual figures do not reconcile either: Saudi Arabia reported 174,303 tonnes of exports in 2025 while the EU recorded 187,330 tonnes declared as Saudi origin, 7.5% more than the exporter’s own world total. Declared origin records where goods were loaded, not where they were made, and a gap of that size is what consolidation through a Gulf port looks like on a customs file.
What survives both caveats: when the EU’s Saudi lane emptied, Saudi Arabia was still shipping. The EU lost the lane before it lost the molecule, and that distinction matters for both price and availability.
The world outside the EU shrank as well
Europe is not the only market that bought less: every large exporter reported lower volumes in 2025 than in 2024.
| Reporter | 2020 (t) | 2021 (t) | 2022 (t) | 2023 (t) | 2024 (t) | 2025 (t) | Unit value 2025 (USD/t) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Saudi Arabia | 226,990 | 293,050 | 299,654 | 178,912 | 238,631 | 174,303 | 898 |
| United States | 77,672 | 171,744 | 111,944 | 65,295 | 121,461 | 40,872 | 982 |
| China | 3,950 | 22,527 | 33,394 | 10,061 | 47,959 | 25,025 | 853 |
| Thailand | 72,856 | 87,408 | 54,014 | 25,596 | 21,626 | 13,936 | 905 |
| Japan | 10,724 | 9,373 | 5,033 | n/r | n/r | 8,374 | 1,042 |
| India | 54,863 | 39,738 | 30,479 | 43,086 | n/r | n/r | n/r |
| Korea | 4,329 | 2,527 | 5,572 | 732 | 463 | n/r | n/r |
Saudi Arabia reported 174,303 tonnes in 2025 against 238,631 in 2024, down 26.9%; the United States 40,872 against 121,461, down 66.4%; China 25,025 against 47,959, down 47.8%; Thailand 13,936 against 21,626, down 35.6%. Every reported 2025 unit value sits between USD 853 and USD 1,042 per tonne, against USD 1,111–1,343 for Saudi material in 2023–2024. These are exporter declarations in dollars, not European import values in euros; the direction is comparable, the level is not.
China: a flat product price on a rising feedstock
Chinese prices explain why the lost European barrels were not simply bid east at a discount: cyclohexane has been flat to lower for a year while its only feedstock has risen.
| Quote date | Price (CNY/t) | Basis as published |
|---|---|---|
| 2025-09-26 | 7,200 | Average price, industrial-grade premium; −0.92% week on week |
| 2026-09-30 | 6,833 | Average price, premium-grade industrial; 2026 range 6,167–8,000, median 7,083 |
| 2026-10-29 | 7,500 | SunSirs spot price, unchanged from 24 to 29 October |
SunSirs quoted 7,200 CNY per tonne on 26 September 2025 and 6,833 on 30 September 2026, 5.1% lower, inside a 2026 range of 6,167–8,000 and a median of 7,083. East China benzene was 9,545 CNY per tonne on 28 September 2026, up 20.77% month on month, with Jiangsu port inventories near 36,000 tonnes and Sinopec raising its listed price by CNY 300 to 10,200. Cyclohexane plant operating rates were 62–66%, with Hualu Hengsheng shut for most of September and Shanxi Lanhua’s 20,000-tonne-a-year unit offline since July.
Analysis. A flat product price against a feedstock that rose 20.8% in a month is a margin event, and a 62–66% run rate is what a margin-squeezed plant does. The downstream does not rescue it: SunSirs put East China cyclohexanone at 10,500–10,600 CNY per tonne in late September, up 53.62% year on year, and caprolactam at 14,145, up 62.71%, both rising faster than the cyclohexane they are made from. The intermediate is squeezed from both ends.
Analysis: what the residual book actually prices
Analysis. Three things are true at once in the 2026 data, and only one is about price.
Volume at the border has collapsed while volume inside the bloc has not. Intra-EU27 dispatches ran 247,052 tonnes in January–July 2026 against 218,695 tonnes a year earlier, 13.0% higher, at a declared unit value of EUR 1,062 against EUR 899, 18.2% higher. Some of that is re-consignment and cannot be added to imports without double counting, but the direction is unambiguous: the molecule still moves inside Europe, at a rising price.
The external book is now a single lane. The United States supplies 56.2% of extra-EU arrivals, Thailand 8.3% and Argentina 2.2%, with Saudi Arabia at 33.1% on a lane that swung from 6,144 tonnes in February to 120 in July. A book that depends on one origin for more than half its volume has no second price to check the first against, and the US lane’s own record is uneven: 6,222 tonnes in July 2026, nothing in January, nothing in August.
The blend is not a price. With the Saudi lane at EUR 798 and the US lane at EUR 1,034, the 2026 average of EUR 976 sits between two markets 29.6% apart — a spread wider than the year-on-year change in either lane. Origin selection now moves a buyer’s cost more than timing does.
Outlook: three tests for the fourth quarter
Outlook. First, whether the Saudi lane returns at scale. Its 2026 pattern — 6,144 tonnes in February, then hundreds — reads as allocation rather than outage, and Saudi Arabia’s own January return shows material still leaving. A return would compress the US lane’s premium; another year without it would leave the US as Europe’s only external option.
Second, whether the US lane holds above 2,000 tonnes a month. It averaged 2,541 tonnes in January–August 2026 but with two zero months, so the average overstates reliability. Any interruption to US Gulf coast logistics hits more than half of Europe’s external supply.
Third, whether European internal prices keep rising. Intra-EU declared values went from EUR 884 per tonne in March 2026 to EUR 1,335 in July, a 51% move in four months. If that flattens while extra-EU volumes stay near 4,000 tonnes a month, the market has found a new equilibrium at lower volume and higher price; if it keeps rising, substitution is incomplete and the next adjustment is rationing by price.
What to do before the next tender
Do not index to the twelve-month average. At EUR 871 per tonne it mixes an 11,711-tonne month with a 388-tonne month. Index to the monthly declared series and write the publication lag into the contract: the August file was refreshed on 16 October, and the intra-EU August rows were still missing on that date.
Price by lane, and qualify a second lane this winter. The gap between US material at EUR 1,034 and Saudi material at EUR 798 is 29.6%, larger than any year-on-year move in either series. Specification approval takes longer than a price cycle, and an origin can go from 6,144 tonnes in one month to 122 tonnes four months later.
The chain is covered on the same customs basis: cyclohexane market data, benzene and the benzene trade series upstream, cyclohexanone and caprolactam downstream, and caprolactam and adipic acid trade data for the nylon chains.
Data limitations
Customs record only what crosses a border. Cyclohexane consumed where it is made never appears, and Eurostat does not publish EU production for HS 290211, so the split between lower consumption and higher domestic output in 2026 cannot be measured from these files.
Intra-EU27 rows measure dispatches between member states: a tonne loaded in Rotterdam and unloaded in Antwerp counts once as an import and again as a dispatch, so the two series cannot be added. Intra-EU declared values are transaction values between EU parties, not a market price, and they were erratic in late 2025 — EUR 487 in November, EUR 642 in December — hence the January–July comparison.
Declared origin is a statement about where goods were loaded. The 7.5% gap between Saudi Arabia’s reported 2025 exports and EU arrivals declared as Saudi origin is left in the text rather than adjusted away. Partner rows that carry value without net mass — India in 2025 and 2026, for example — are excluded rather than converted at an assumed price. August 2026 is provisional, and intra-EU August rows are not yet published. No subscription assessment, interpolated series or estimated figure is used anywhere in this article.
Data sources
- Eurostat Comext DS-045409, dataset page — https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/DS-045409/default/table (accessed 2026-10-29)
- Eurostat Comext API, EU27 monthly extra-EU imports of HS 290211, 2025-01 to 2026-08 — https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/api/comext/dissemination/statistics/1.0/data/DS-045409?format=JSON&freq=M&reporter=EU27_2020&partner=EXT_EU27_2020&product=290211&flow=1&indicators=VALUE_IN_EUROS&indicators=QUANTITY_IN_100KG&sinceTimePeriod=2025-01 (accessed 2026-10-29)
- Eurostat Comext API, EU27 monthly extra-EU exports of HS 290211, 2025-01 to 2026-08 — https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/api/comext/dissemination/statistics/1.0/data/DS-045409?format=JSON&freq=M&reporter=EU27_2020&partner=EXT_EU27_2020&product=290211&flow=2&indicators=VALUE_IN_EUROS&indicators=QUANTITY_IN_100KG&sinceTimePeriod=2025-01 (accessed 2026-10-29)
- Eurostat Comext API, EU27 annual extra-EU imports of HS 290211, 2019 to 2025 — https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/api/comext/dissemination/statistics/1.0/data/DS-045409?format=JSON&freq=A&reporter=EU27_2020&partner=EXT_EU27_2020&product=290211&flow=1&indicators=VALUE_IN_EUROS&indicators=QUANTITY_IN_100KG&sinceTimePeriod=2019 (accessed 2026-10-29)
- Eurostat Comext API, EU27 monthly imports of HS 290211 by partner, 2023-01 to 2026-08 — https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/api/comext/dissemination/statistics/1.0/data/DS-045409?format=JSON&freq=M&reporter=EU27_2020&product=290211&flow=1&indicators=VALUE_IN_EUROS&indicators=QUANTITY_IN_100KG&sinceTimePeriod=2023-01 (accessed 2026-10-29)
- UN Comtrade preview API, HS 290211 exports, Saudi Arabia (682), 2025 — https://comtradeapi.un.org/public/v1/preview/C/A/HS?includeDesc=true&reporterCode=682&period=2025&flowCode=X&cmdCode=290211&partnerCode=0 (accessed 2026-10-29)
- UN Comtrade preview API, HS 290211 exports, United States (842), 2025 — https://comtradeapi.un.org/public/v1/preview/C/A/HS?includeDesc=true&reporterCode=842&period=2025&flowCode=X&cmdCode=290211&partnerCode=0 (accessed 2026-10-29)
- UN Comtrade preview API, HS 290211 exports, China (156), 2025 — https://comtradeapi.un.org/public/v1/preview/C/A/HS?includeDesc=true&reporterCode=156&period=2025&flowCode=X&cmdCode=290211&partnerCode=0 (accessed 2026-10-29)
- UN Comtrade preview API, HS 290211 exports, Thailand (764), 2025 — https://comtradeapi.un.org/public/v1/preview/C/A/HS?includeDesc=true&reporterCode=764&period=2025&flowCode=X&cmdCode=290211&partnerCode=0 (accessed 2026-10-29)
- UN Comtrade preview API, HS 290211 exports, Saudi Arabia (682), monthly January 2026 — https://comtradeapi.un.org/public/v1/preview/C/M/HS?includeDesc=true&reporterCode=682&period=202601&flowCode=X&cmdCode=290211&partnerCode=0 (accessed 2026-10-29)
- UN Comtrade preview API, HS 290211 exports, Saudi Arabia (682), monthly February 2026 — https://comtradeapi.un.org/public/v1/preview/C/M/HS?includeDesc=true&reporterCode=682&period=202602&flowCode=X&cmdCode=290211&partnerCode=0 (accessed 2026-10-29)
- SunSirs, China cyclohexane market summary, 19–26 September 2025 — https://www.sunsirs.com/uk/detail_news-26850.html (accessed 2026-10-29)
- SunSirs, cyclohexane prices mainly stable, 28 January 2026 — https://www.sunsirs.com/uk/detail_news-30117.html (accessed 2026-10-29)
- SunSirs via ChemNet, little upward momentum for cyclohexane prices in September, 9 October 2026 — https://news.chemnet.com/news-10522.html (accessed 2026-10-29)
- SunSirs, China cyclohexane spot price series — https://www.sunsirs.com/uk/prodetail-1364.html (accessed 2026-10-29)
If you need the full monthly matrix behind these tables — every origin by month with volumes, values and unit values, plus the same cut for benzene, cyclohexanone, caprolactam and adipic acid — you can request a sample or a custom cut.