Global demand for PC and ABS resin keeps growing, while PS is hoping to right the ship after a decade of demand losses. According to Chemical Market Associate Inc. market analyst Adrian Beale, worldwide demand for PC is expected to grow from just under 8 million pounds in 2010 to almost 10 billion pounds in 2015.
In ABS, Beale expects global demand to increase from less than 18 billion pounds in 2010 to almost 21 billion pounds in 2015. With the Chinese applicance market also enjoying an unexpected renaissance, transportion will be the fastest-growing end market for ABS.
For PS, CMAI market analyst Peter Feng pointed out though global PS demand declined an average of 1% annually between 2000 and 2010, such declines shouldn’t continue, because PS now is roughly equivalent in price to PP and PET—two materials that had taken the place of the market of PS in recent years.