Summary. EU27 exports of ethylene dichloride (HS 290315), the chlorinated intermediate between ethylene and vinyl chloride, reached 540,168 tonnes in the twelve months to August 2026, 56.2% more than the preceding twelve months, at EUR 165 per tonne, 12.2% lower. Imports were 165,196 tonnes at EUR 444 per tonne, up 30.2% in volume and 28.3% in unit value. The EU sold 3.3 tonnes abroad for every tonne it bought, and the two books cleared EUR 279 per tonne apart — the widest gap back to 2018. Egypt took 53.8% of the export volume; the United Kingdom supplied 64.8% of the import volume. The 2026 recovery shows on three independent customs files: EU imports, UK exports and Indian imports all put the June 2026 unit value near twice its October 2025 trough.
Data updated: 2026-10-30
Latest 12 months: exports up a half, at a lower declared value
Table 1 covers September 2025 to August 2026 for CN 290315, EU27 trade with partners outside the bloc, from Eurostat Comext DS-045409, refreshed 16 October 2026. Unit values are declared value divided by net mass: customs values, not price assessments, and the difference matters below.
| Month | Imports (t) | Import value (EUR m) | Import unit value (EUR/t) | Exports (t) | Export unit value (EUR/t) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-09 | 10,750 | 3.9 | 359 | 51,456 | 98 |
| 2025-10 | 24,542 | 7.6 | 310 | 40,756 | 91 |
| 2025-11 | 15,524 | 4.8 | 311 | 42,433 | 105 |
| 2025-12 | 10,033 | 3.4 | 341 | 66,527 | 136 |
| 2026-01 | 10,695 | 3.7 | 345 | 14,857 | 183 |
| 2026-02 | 13,367 | 5.8 | 433 | 43,306 | 135 |
| 2026-03 | 10,533 | 4.0 | 378 | 43,264 | 147 |
| 2026-04 | 6,942 | 4.0 | 573 | 27,625 | 169 |
| 2026-05 | 10,483 | 6.1 | 585 | 37,963 | 167 |
| 2026-06 | 17,288 | 10.4 | 602 | 76,246 | 234 |
| 2026-07 | 29,526 | 16.9 | 572 | 51,202 | 258 |
| 2026-08 | 5,513 | 2.8 | 515 | 44,536 | 218 |
| Total | 165,196 | 73.4 | 444 | 540,168 | 165 |
Export volumes ran between 14,857 and 76,246 tonnes a month; January 2026 is the only month below 27,000 and is flagged as incomplete in the data limitations. Imports were smaller and less even: 6,942 tonnes in April, 29,526 in July, 5,513 in August.
The two unit-value series crossed in April 2026 and stayed apart. Import values went from EUR 310 in October 2025 to EUR 602 in June 2026, up 94%; export values from EUR 91 to EUR 258 in July, up 183% from a lower base. The EU shipped 540,168 tonnes for EUR 89.0 million and received 165,196 tonnes for EUR 73.4 million: 3.3 times the volume for 1.2 times the money.
The position flipped in 2023 and has not flipped back
The 2026 pattern is not new: it is the third year of a position that reversed in 2023 and has widened since.
| Period | Imports (t) | Import unit value (EUR/t) | Exports (t) | Export unit value (EUR/t) | Net balance (t) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 418,389 | 462 | 173,165 | 274 | -245,223 |
| 2020 | 373,258 | 431 | 240,472 | 188 | -132,786 |
| 2021 | 329,220 | 396 | 196,135 | 555 | -133,086 |
| 2022 | 292,939 | 648 | 179,147 | 458 | -113,793 |
| 2023 | 78,797 | 342 | 270,010 | 273 | +191,213 |
| 2024 | 118,746 | 358 | 267,847 | 256 | +149,102 |
| 2025 | 148,207 | 340 | 439,060 | 141 | +290,853 |
| Jan–Aug 2025 | 87,358 | 350 | 237,890 | 167 | +150,532 |
| Jan–Aug 2026 | 104,347 | 515 | 338,997 | 197 | +234,650 |
The flip was an import collapse first. Arrivals fell from 292,939 tonnes in 2022 to 78,797 in 2023, 73.1% in one year, while exports rose 50.7%. Imports then rebuilt to 118,746 tonnes in 2024 and 148,207 in 2025 without closing the gap, because exports grew faster: 267,847 tonnes then 439,060, up 63.9%. The 2025 surplus of 290,853 tonnes is the largest back to 2018 and 1.95 times the 2024 figure; in 2018 the same balance was a deficit of 294,175 tonnes.
2025 was also the year the price broke: the export unit value fell to EUR 141 from EUR 256, 44.9% lower, and the import value to EUR 340 from EUR 358. In 2022 the same two lines were EUR 648 and EUR 458. A molecule that cleared at EUR 648 a tonne on the way in four years ago cleared at EUR 141 on the way out last year. That is not a margin story; it is a change in what the European book is for.
Two books, two prices
In January–August 2026 imports averaged EUR 515 per tonne and exports EUR 197, a ratio of 2.61. The ratio moved between 0.71 and 2.29 in every year from 2019 to 2024, then 2.41 in 2025 and 2.61 in 2026: the divergence is a 2025–2026 event, not a permanent feature.
The import book is small and concentrated. The United Kingdom supplied 67,565 tonnes (64.8%) at EUR 480 per tonne and the United States 36,781 tonnes (35.2%) at EUR 579. Norway, which supplied 25,934 tonnes in 2025, supplied none in 2026; Norway is also a destination, at 25,358 tonnes in the same window, which is what transfers inside one producer’s plant network look like on a customs return.
The UK’s own return tests that figure from outside. The UK declared 4,523 tonnes of HS 290315 exports in June 2025 at USD 301 per tonne, and 10,316 tonnes in June 2026 at USD 674, a 124% rise. The EU recorded 6,313 tonnes of UK-origin arrivals in June 2026 at EUR 584 per tonne: the same material, at a comparable value, in a different currency.
India’s return points the same way from the buying side: 39,421 tonnes at USD 206 per tonne in October 2025, 25,717 tonnes at USD 456 in June 2026, a 121% rise on a smaller volume. India reports net mass only in some months, so May and August 2025 are excluded rather than converted at an assumed price.
Analysis. Three administrations, three declarations, one direction: June 2026 EDC unit values sit at roughly twice their late-2025 level. A single customs series can drift on classification or transfer pricing; three moving together is a market move, and the first in this product since 2022.
Origins and destinations: one lane each
Volume concentration is higher than the price dispersion. On the export side three destinations take 92.3% of the book; on the import side two origins take all of it.
| Lane | 2024 (t) | 2025 (t) | Share 2025 | Unit value 2025 | Jan–Aug 2026 (t) | Share 2026 | Unit value 2026 | Volume change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Imports from | ||||||||
| United Kingdom | 4,956 | 67,474 | 45.5% | 303 | 67,565 | 64.8% | 480 | +339.4% |
| United States | 77,601 | 54,793 | 37.0% | 360 | 36,781 | 35.2% | 579 | -32.9% |
| Norway | 36,189 | 25,934 | 17.5% | 390 | 0 | 0.0% | n/a | -100.0% |
| Total imports | 118,746 | 148,207 | 100.0% | 340 | 104,347 | 100.0% | 515 | +19.4% |
| Exports to | ||||||||
| Egypt | 210,437 | 233,034 | 53.1% | 139 | 182,283 | 53.8% | 191 | +19.2% |
| India | 41,390 | 147,168 | 33.5% | 114 | 99,811 | 29.4% | 144 | +86.2% |
| Pakistan | 103 | 21,894 | 5.0% | 99 | 30,786 | 9.1% | 148 | n/m |
| Norway | 9,000 | 22,450 | 5.1% | 363 | 25,358 | 7.5% | 463 | +46.6% |
| Thailand | 178 | 10,507 | 2.4% | 88 | 20 | 0.0% | n/m | -99.8% |
| Total exports | 267,847 | 439,060 | 100.0% | 141 | 338,997 | 100.0% | 197 | +42.5% |
Egypt took 182,283 tonnes in January–August 2026 against 152,954 a year earlier, 19.2% more, at EUR 191 per tonne against EUR 147. India took 99,811 tonnes against 53,599, 86.2% more, at EUR 144 against EUR 156. Pakistan took 30,786 tonnes, already above its full-year 2025 volume, at EUR 148 against EUR 99.
Those unit values are not comparable with the import book: EUR 144 per tonne on the India lane is less than a third of the EUR 515 the EU paid for its own imports in the same eight months. That gap is too large for freight basis alone to explain, and the file does not say whether grade or related-party values account for it. It is left unadjusted. What it does establish is the ranking: Egypt is the largest lane and India the fastest-growing one.
The polymer gate and the feedstock gate
On 9 January 2025 the European Commission imposed definitive anti-dumping duties on suspension PVC from Egypt (74.2–100.1%) and the United States (58–77%), in a market it values at EUR 3.5 billion.
Eurostat shows it. EU imports of PVC (HS 390410) from Egypt ran 60,989 tonnes in 2023 and 33,569 in 2024, then nothing in 2025 and nothing in January–August 2026; US-origin arrivals fell from 267,044 tonnes in 2023 to 122,870, 10,413 and 14,254 across the three following periods. Total EU PVC imports did not fall: 660,450 tonnes in 2023, 408,623 in 2024, 498,406 in 2025, and 462,444 tonnes in January–August 2026 against 294,131, 57.2% higher. Korea supplied 174,194 tonnes of that window and China 74,433.
Analysis. The duty closed the polymer gate for two origins without closing the feedstock gate. Egypt took 182,283 tonnes of EU ethylene dichloride in January–August 2026 while shipping no PVC to the EU. Whether those barrels feed the plants that used to ship polymer into Europe cannot be established from a customs file. The direction of the two flows is not in doubt: Europe now supplies feedstock to the vinyl chains it excludes from its polymer market.
What the 2025 annual files say about the world market
2025 is the last complete annual record. Six exporters declared more than 70,000 tonnes, and the spread between the cheapest and dearest is 127% — what a commodity at the bottom of a cycle looks like.
| Reporter | 2024 exports (t) | 2025 exports (t) | 2025 unit value (USD/t) | Volume change | Unit value change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 745,938 | 870,343 | 199 | +16.7% | -15.3% |
| Korea | n/r | 569,259 | 206 | n/a | n/a |
| European Union | 269,846 | 444,110 | 158 | +64.6% | -41.9% |
| Indonesia | 295,004 | 311,603 | 161 | +5.6% | -39.9% |
| Saudi Arabia | 416,497 | 253,276 | 282 | -39.2% | -17.3% |
| United Kingdom | 4,958 | 73,766 | 359 | n/m | -36.9% |
| Japan | 25,575 | 8,934 | 205 | -65.1% | -38.6% |
The United States exported 870,343 tonnes, 16.7% more than 2024, at USD 199 per tonne against USD 235. Saudi Arabia exported 253,276 tonnes, 39.2% less, at USD 282. Indonesia held volume at 311,603 tonnes, 5.6% higher, at USD 161 against 268. The EU’s own return, 444,110 tonnes at USD 158, is within 1.2% of the 439,060 tonnes Eurostat reports for the same year: two independent declarations of one trade, which is the strongest check available on either.
On the buying side India declared 690,926 tonnes at USD 233 per tonne, 4.2 times the EU’s twelve-month import volume and the largest single import book in the file. Egypt declared 399,010 tonnes at USD 308, down 27.6% in volume and 17.0% in value; China 384,255 tonnes at USD 207, its first complete year in the preview after an empty 2024 row.
Analysis. At USD 158–282 per tonne, five exporters with different feedstock slates priced within a 78% band in 2025 — a market priced at the margin rather than at cost, and the margin is the US Gulf, at 870,343 tonnes and USD 199 per tonne, below every other exporter above 250,000 tonnes. A Gulf disruption reprices every other lane; a Saudi cut, at 253,276 tonnes, does not.
Analysis: what a buyer should underwrite
The EU import value is not Europe’s price. At EUR 515 per tonne it describes 104,347 tonnes of arrivals, 65% from one supplier, against 338,997 tonnes of exports at EUR 197. A contract indexing to “the European EDC price” without naming the side of the book indexes a number most of the market never touched.
Concentration is the main risk, not price. Three destinations take 92.3% of exports and two origins 100% of imports. One UK plant outage or one change in Cairo moves more volume than a 10% price move; a second lane qualified before it is needed costs less than one qualified during an outage.
The surplus is a policy position as much as a cost position. Europe’s polymer market is protected and its feedstock exports are not: stable while the duties stand, repriced quickly if they are extended.
Outlook: three tests for the next two quarters
First, whether the import price holds above EUR 500. June 2026 printed EUR 602 and August EUR 515 on 5,513 tonnes, a thin provisional month. Two autumn months above EUR 500 on volumes above 10,000 tonnes would confirm the 2025 trough as the cycle bottom rather than a pause in a decline.
Second, whether Egypt and India keep absorbing the surplus. Both raised volumes in 2026 while paying more per tonne, which is what a buyer does when it has no substitute at scale. A month of Egyptian absence would push 20,000–30,000 tonnes back onto the water and show in the export unit value before it shows in the volume.
Third, whether European vinyl capacity keeps shrinking. Every tonne of European VCM or PVC capacity that closes removes domestic EDC demand and adds to the surplus. The PVC side is covered in our PVC trade note, which tracks the same Comext file and the anti-dumping cases running through it.
Related coverage
The chain is covered on the same customs basis: ethylene dichloride market data, vinyl chloride one step downstream, chlorine as the co-product that sets the chlor-alkali rate, and ethylene, the feedstock whose cost decides whether an EDC unit runs.
For the monthly matrix behind these tables — every origin and destination with volumes, values and unit values, plus the same cut for VCM, chlorine, ethylene and PVC — request a sample or a custom cut.
Data limitations
Customs record only what crosses a border. EDC converted to VCM inside the same plant never appears, so lower European consumption cannot be separated from a higher surplus in these files.
Unit values are declared values divided by net mass. They include related-party transfer prices, mix FOB export values with CIF import values, and do not distinguish grades, so the EUR 279 per tonne gap between the two European books is partly a commercial-structure gap. The India lane’s EUR 144 per tonne export value against India’s USD 456 per tonne June import value is a wider inconsistency of the same kind, left in the text rather than adjusted away.
2025 annual figures from Comtrade are first-reported and subject to revision. Two reporters have broken annual rows that must not be read as nil: Korea shows no 2024 export record between 305,664 tonnes in 2023 and 569,259 in 2025, and India no 2022–2024 import record before 690,926 tonnes. The UK recorded 1 tonne of exports in 2023 and 4,958 in 2024 before 73,766 in 2025, a filing gap rather than a fifteen-fold expansion.
Eurostat’s January 2026 export figure of 14,857 tonnes is roughly a third of every neighbouring month and is treated as incomplete; the January 2025 import row carries EUR 0.5 thousand against zero tonnes and is excluded from unit values. August 2026 is provisional and the dataset was refreshed on 16 October 2026. 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 2026-10-30)
- Eurostat Comext API, EU27 monthly extra-EU imports of HS 290315, 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=290315&flow=1&indicators=VALUE_IN_EUROS&indicators=QUANTITY_IN_100KG&sinceTimePeriod=2025-01 (accessed 2026-10-30)
- Eurostat Comext API, EU27 monthly extra-EU exports of HS 290315, 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=290315&flow=2&indicators=VALUE_IN_EUROS&indicators=QUANTITY_IN_100KG&sinceTimePeriod=2025-01 (accessed 2026-10-30)
- Eurostat Comext API, EU27 annual extra-EU imports of HS 290315, 2018 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=290315&flow=1&indicators=VALUE_IN_EUROS&indicators=QUANTITY_IN_100KG&sinceTimePeriod=2018 (accessed 2026-10-30)
- Eurostat Comext API, EU27 annual extra-EU exports of HS 290315, 2018 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=290315&flow=2&indicators=VALUE_IN_EUROS&indicators=QUANTITY_IN_100KG&sinceTimePeriod=2018 (accessed 2026-10-30)
- Eurostat Comext API, EU27 monthly imports of HS 290315 by partner, 2024-01 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=290315&flow=1&indicators=VALUE_IN_EUROS&indicators=QUANTITY_IN_100KG&sinceTimePeriod=2024-01 (accessed 2026-10-30)
- Eurostat Comext API, EU27 monthly exports of HS 290315 by partner, 2024-01 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=290315&flow=2&indicators=VALUE_IN_EUROS&indicators=QUANTITY_IN_100KG&sinceTimePeriod=2024-01 (accessed 2026-10-30)
- Eurostat Comext API, EU27 monthly imports of HS 390410 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=390410&flow=1&indicators=VALUE_IN_EUROS&indicators=QUANTITY_IN_100KG&sinceTimePeriod=2023-01 (accessed 2026-10-30)
- UN Comtrade preview API, HS 290315 exports, United States (842), 2025 — https://comtradeapi.un.org/public/v1/preview/C/A/HS?includeDesc=true&reporterCode=842&period=2025&flowCode=X&cmdCode=290315&partnerCode=0 (accessed 2026-10-30)
- UN Comtrade preview API, HS 290315 exports, European Union (97), 2025 — https://comtradeapi.un.org/public/v1/preview/C/A/HS?includeDesc=true&reporterCode=97&period=2025&flowCode=X&cmdCode=290315&partnerCode=0 (accessed 2026-10-30)
- UN Comtrade preview API, HS 290315 exports, Korea (410) and Saudi Arabia (682), 2025 — https://comtradeapi.un.org/public/v1/preview/C/A/HS?includeDesc=true&reporterCode=410&period=2025&flowCode=X&cmdCode=290315&partnerCode=0, https://comtradeapi.un.org/public/v1/preview/C/A/HS?includeDesc=true&reporterCode=682&period=2025&flowCode=X&cmdCode=290315&partnerCode=0 (accessed 2026-10-30)
- UN Comtrade preview API, HS 290315 imports, India (699), Egypt (818) and China (156), 2025 — https://comtradeapi.un.org/public/v1/preview/C/A/HS?includeDesc=true&reporterCode=699&period=2025&flowCode=M&cmdCode=290315&partnerCode=0, https://comtradeapi.un.org/public/v1/preview/C/A/HS?includeDesc=true&reporterCode=818&period=2025&flowCode=M&cmdCode=290315&partnerCode=0, https://comtradeapi.un.org/public/v1/preview/C/A/HS?includeDesc=true&reporterCode=156&period=2025&flowCode=M&cmdCode=290315&partnerCode=0 (accessed 2026-10-30)
- UN Comtrade preview API, HS 290315 exports, United Kingdom (826), monthly June 2026 — https://comtradeapi.un.org/public/v1/preview/C/M/HS?includeDesc=true&reporterCode=826&period=202606&flowCode=X&cmdCode=290315&partnerCode=0 (accessed 2026-10-30)
- UN Comtrade preview API, HS 290315 imports, India (699), monthly June 2026 — https://comtradeapi.un.org/public/v1/preview/C/M/HS?includeDesc=true&reporterCode=699&period=202606&flowCode=M&cmdCode=290315&partnerCode=0 (accessed 2026-10-30)
- European Commission, DG Trade, “Commission counters dumped polyvinyl chloride from USA and Egypt”, 10 January 2025 — https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/news/commission-counters-dumped-polyvinyl-chloride-usa-and-egypt-2025-01-10_en (accessed 2026-10-30)
- Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/36 of 9 January 2025 imposing a definitive anti-dumping duty on imports of certain polyvinyl chloride originating in Egypt and the United States — https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg_impl/2025/36/oj/eng (accessed 2026-10-30)