The Urethane Blog
March 23, 2026
China Polyether Polyols Reprice Ahead of VAT Rebate Removal as Near-Term Cost Pressures Build
March 20, 2026 3 min read
With less than two weeks remaining before the formal cancellation of the 13% export VAT rebate on April 1, 2026, China’s polyether polyol market has already entered a phase of pronounced structural repricing. Although the policy has yet to take effect, the majority of Chinese suppliers have proactively adjusted export offers to incorporate the anticipated cost impact. Current market behavior indicates that FOB quotations are now widely inclusive of the full 13% rebate removal, effectively passing through the policy impact downstream ahead of implementation.
Logistics Uncertainty Drives Shift Toward “Non-Rebate” Pricing
The primary driver behind this early repricing lies in widespread uncertainty surrounding shipment timelines and customs clearance. Ongoing global logistics disruptions and vessel tightness have raised concerns over whether recently booked cargoes can complete export clearance before the April 1 deadline. Under the policy framework, only shipments cleared prior to implementation remain eligible for the rebate, while those cleared afterward will not.
To mitigate the financial risks associated with timing mismatches, suppliers are increasingly adopting a more conservative pricing approach, standardizing export offers on a non-rebate basis. While a limited number of suppliers continue to provide rebate-inclusive pricing (i.e., without the 13% adjustment), such offers are rapidly diminishing and are expected to disappear in the near term. As a result, the market has effectively transitioned into a new pricing regime ahead of schedule, with most transactions now concluded at elevated, adjusted price levels.
Stable Domestic Pricing Highlights Structural Shift in Export Mechanism
In contrast to the evolving export pricing landscape, China’s domestic polyether polyol market remains largely stable. Domestic prices inherently include the 13% VAT and are not directly impacted by the rebate cancellation policy. As such, the policy primarily alters export pricing mechanisms rather than underlying production costs.
Against this backdrop, domestic market prices serve as a key benchmark for assessing export cost positioning.
Table: Indicative FOB China Export Prices and Domestic Market Levels
| Grade | Incl. Rebate FOB (USD/MT) | Excl. Rebate FOB (USD/MT) | DEL China (CNY/MT) |
| Flexible Slabstock Polyol 3000MW | 1630 – 1680 | 1840 – 1900 | 11,100 – 11,600 |
| Polymer Polyols 42–45% | 1690 – 1740 | 1910 – 1960 | 12,000 – 12,800 |
| Rigid Polyols | 1560 – 1610 | 1760 – 1820 | 10,300 – 10,600 |
Note: FOB prices are indicative offers from multiple suppliers across different regions in China, on drum basis. DEL China prices refer to East China region, on bulk basis.
Buyer Strategy Shifts Toward Execution Certainty
Chinese suppliers are actively raising export prices ahead of the April 1 policy change, effectively establishing a higher baseline for upcoming negotiations. Amid persistent logistics constraints and vessel tightness, the likelihood of securing pre-deadline customs clearance remains uncertain, accelerating the withdrawal of rebate-inclusive offers.
For buyers, procurement strategies are increasingly driven by execution visibility. While shipments cleared before the policy takes effect may still offer short-term cost advantages, the risks associated with timing uncertainty remain significant. As a result, decision-making is shifting toward prioritizing supply assurance over opportunistic cost savings.
Regional Competitive Dynamics: China’s Dominance Remains Intact
In the near term, the price competitiveness of Chinese polyether polyols in regional markets is likely to face some pressure, as margin compression encourages suppliers to adopt more disciplined pricing and sales strategies. At the same time, producers in other regions—particularly Europe—may attempt to expand their presence in import-dependent markets such as India and Southeast Asia.
However, elevated energy and feedstock costs continue to constrain their ability to capitalize on this opportunity. Given China’s scale, production capacity, and entrenched market share, substitution risks remain limited. As such, regional markets are expected to remain structurally reliant on Chinese supply in the near term.
Overall, the market is entering a phase of structurally firmer pricing. Procurement strategies are increasingly shifting away from short-term cost optimization toward a stronger emphasis on execution certainty and supply security, reflecting a more cautious and risk-aware market environment.
March 22, 2026
China vows more open economy in bid to boost confidence
ByLiam Mo and Ryan Woo
March 22 2026 – 8:00am
China has faced tensions with major trading partners over its record $A1.7 trillion trade surplus. Photo: EPA PHOTO
Chinese Premier Li Qiang has pledged to further open up the economy and fully implement national treatment for foreign enterprises as the country seeks to reassure the outside world amid rising global trade tensions.
China will import more high-quality foreign goods and work with all parties to promote optimised and balanced trade development and expand the global trade pie, Li told the China Development Forum in Beijing, state media reported on Sunday.
The annual two-day forum, which concludes on Monday, allows Beijing to lay out its economic vision and investment opportunities to foreign business leaders, Chinese officials, economists and academics.
This year’s gathering comes as the world’s second-largest economy faces rising tensions with major trading partners over 2025’s record $US1.2 ($A1.7) trillion trade surplus.
Premier Li Qiang says China is committed to being a “harbour of stability” for the world economy. (EPA PHOTO)
Challenges for Beijing are aplenty, including deflecting concerns from an increasing number of global capitals about China’s trade practices and overcapacity, as well as their overreliance on key Chinese products.
While Li’s speech did not appear to directly mention the surplus, his pledges indicate an awareness that the issue could disrupt international relations at a time when China has reached a temporary truce with the US on trade.
US President Donald Trump last week postponed a trip to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping due to the Iran war, delaying an effort to ease tensions between the world’s two biggest economies.
In a separate speech at the forum, China’s central bank governor Pan Gongsheng also sought to alleviate concerns surrounding the trade surplus.
“Analysing global economic imbalances requires looking not only at trade in goods but also services, and not only at the current account but also the financial account,” Pan said, according to a transcript of his speech published by the People’s Bank of China, adding that China is the country with the largest goods surplus but also the largest services deficit.
China has no need and no intention to gain trade competitive advantage through currency depreciation, Pan said.
Senior executives attending include those from Apple, Samsung Electronics, Volkswagen, chipmaker Broadcom Inc, industrial conglomerate Siemens, chemical producer BASF and pharmaceutical firm Novartis.
There were no Japanese company executives on the guest list on the forum’s website.
said foreign firms would be treated in the same way as domestic ones, allowing enterprises from all countries to develop with confidence and realise their ambitions in China.
In a separate meeting, Commerce Minister Wang Wentao told business leaders from a US pharmaceutical trade group and executives from five major multinational drug companies that China would strengthen intellectual property protection and improve policy transparency.
Australian Associated Press
March 22, 2026
CBP has provided another update to the U.S. Court of International Trade on the development of its new ACE-based refund system for IEEPA duties, known as CAPE (Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries).
While progress is being made, the system is still under development and not yet ready for deployment.
Latest Development Status
As of March 19, CBP reports the following progress:
- Claim Portal: 73% complete (testing underway)
- Mass Processing: 45% complete (validations and tracking in development)
- Review & Liquidation/Reliquidation: 80% complete (now in testing phase)
- Refund Processing: 63% complete (including refund consolidation functionality)
According to CBP, the system is now moving into more advanced testing phases, which are required before it can go live.
What This Means for Importers
Once operational, CAPE will allow importers and brokers to:
- Submit refund requests directly through a new ACE portal interface
- Have IEEPA tariffs automatically removed and duties recalculated
- Receive consolidated refunds at the importer level, including applicable interest
CBP also confirmed it is building functionality to track processing history and validate entries, which may impact which entries are eligible in early phases of the rollout.
Key Takeaway
Although progress continues, this update confirms that the refund system is still several weeks away from being fully operational.
In the meantime, importers should continue preparing by:
- Reviewing entries that may be eligible for refunds
- Ensuring ACE accounts are properly configured
- Completing ACH refund setup to avoid delays once payments begin
March 19, 2026
Small businesses are pushing back against private equity
Story by Michael Sasso and Saijel Kishan
(Bloomberg Businessweek) — Jay Cunningham says he’s fielded hundreds of calls and emails over the years from private equity firms poking around his Atlanta-area plumbing business. He wagers he could fetch tens of millions of dollars for Superior Plumbing, freeing up time for him to see his grandkids, say, or travel more to New York. But Cunningham refuses to make a deal with a buyout firm. Going from independent to PE-owned, he says, would be bad for his employees—including several of his adult children—as well as the wider community. “I’ve resisted selling, because of the people that work for me,” Cunningham, 64, says, adding that shoppers, too, are starting to boycott PE-backed companies if they’re aware the ownership has changed. They understand “that when these firms are getting gobbled up, it’s less favorable for the customer.”
For at least a decade, private equity has been encroaching on America’s mom and pop businesses, the backbone of the US economy, scooping up independent roofing contractors, veterinary practices, health clinics and other operators at a rapid clip. Now a PE pushback is brewing among small-business owners such as Cunningham, who are increasingly refusing to take part—and making sure everybody knows it, loudly touting their antibuyout stances and locally owned credentials.
Cunningham’s Superior Plumbing, for instance, has been advertising on electronic billboards across metro Atlanta that it’s “Still Locally Owned & Operated.” (It might as well read, “We’re Not Private Equity.”) In central Florida, Next Dimension Construction & Roofing posted a sleek video on social media warning about PE-owned businesses “run by investors who’ve never set foot in your neighborhood.” Some smaller-scale financiers see an opportunity in the backlash. Mark Peterson, a self-described “anti-PE” investor, buys minority stakes in small landscape and heavy construction businesses to help them stay independent without needed backing from new-to-the-sector investors who parachute in from faraway finance hubs, wearing suits to the worksite. “Boots before spreadsheets,” says Peterson, owner of Blue Collar CFOs in Idaho.
Spanning HVAC contractors in Texas and snow plow operators in Illinois to pest control businesses in New Jersey and electricians in Ohio, owners are increasingly sounding the alarm against PE, warning that buyout firms’ cost-cutting and debt-heavy deals are hollowing out the US’s small-business sector. Resistance to buyout deals has existed to some degree ever since Wall Street started invading Main Street with its typical PE playbook: Buy companies in fragmented industries, consolidate them in a “roll-up” strategy, improve their cash flow and sell them for a profit in a few years. But now the opposition appears to be intensifying, especially as baby boomer business owners prepare to sell their homegrown companies in what’s been dubbed an impending “silver tsunami.”
Roughly a quarter of small-business owners in the US are 65 years or older. As they prepare to retire, more than a million viable small and midsize companies will be up for sale by 2035, together worth as much as $5 trillion, according to a February report by the McKinsey Institute for Economic Mobility. These “owners have put a lot of sweat equity into their businesses. It’s part of their identity,” says Michael Strain, a director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. So when PE comes calling, “there’s definitely a backlash.”
At the same time, the spread of software that digitizes scheduling, billing and customer service for even the most niche sectors has opened the door for PE firms to enter markets beyond health care and housing, where they already hold large positions. For instance, traffic-flagging companies, which help wave motorists through road projects, are seeing a surge of PE interest in the past two years. “We get notices every week that another firm has been acquired,” says Stacy Tetschner, chief executive officer of the American Traffic Safety Services Association, a Virginia-based trade group. Buyouts have been so hot in the landscaping industry that trade magazine Landscape Management introduced an annual mergers and acquisitions scorecard edition a year ago, editor-in-chief Scott Hollister says.
Software vendor ServiceTitan Inc., which has roughly doubled its revenue since 2023, to almost $1 billion, promotes “hypergrowth” opportunities for PE firms focusing on the trades. (ServiceTitan, based just outside of Los Angeles, didn’t respond to requests for comment.) Putting a recently acquired small business on such a software platform, which might let the new owner tap virtual customer service agents and automate scheduling, is usually one of PE’s first moves, says Robert Tymowski, an investment banker at Livingstone Partners LLC in Chicago. Home service companies never had big numbers of back-office staff, but they’re likely to shrink further with the growth of artificial intelligence, says Terry Tillman, a software analyst at Truist Securities Inc. in Atlanta. “It is a selling point,” he says. “Do more with less.”
In fact, going digital is such a big part of the PE playbook that customers mistakenly assumed Yossi Wachtel had taken a buyout after he upgraded the systems at his plumbing business in the Los Angeles area. Wachtel added branded trucks, introduced a digital scheduling system and began sharing technicians’ bios and photos with clients before visits, all in a bid to distance his company from the old caricature of a plumber wearing sagging pants exposing his backside. But those improvements backfired when a customer replied to a maintenance follow-up message asking to be removed from his list because they didn’t “do business with private equity owned companies,” says Wachtel, founder of Monkey Wrench Plumbing, Heating, Air & Electric. Now he instructs technicians to emphasize the operation’s family ownership whenever they’re on a job.
Supporters of private equity are quick to point out the benefits of the industry’s model. Private ownership can bring in capital, helping to strengthen businesses and create jobs; it can also help companies innovate and modernize. Some PE firms today even encourage the small-business founder to keep a minority stake in the company, hoping to preserve its culture. Buyouts in businesses worth $100 million or less totaled $89 billion last year, up 56% since 2015, according to data firm PitchBook. Will Dunham, president of the American Investment Council, an advocacy group for the private equity industry, says buyout firms are a key driver of growth for small and midsize businesses in the US. “Research shows that PE-backed businesses consistently boast higher wages and benefits, more job creation and stronger revenue than their non-PE-backed peers,” he says.
But critics point to the darker side: higher prices for customers, a singular focus on the bottom line, potential layoffs, less benefit to the community. In the New Orleans area, small-business owner Craig Jacomine has been encouraging other operators to consider local partnerships to help them become more streamlined and professional instead of selling to private equity, especially after seeing the fallout firsthand at competitors who made deals: a loss of control, higher debt leverage and payout structures that can limit what sellers ultimately get if they don’t meet performance targets.
“If we keep going down this route,” says Jacomine, who says he turns down nonstop calls from buyout firms looking to acquire his electric generator company, “everyone is going to be buying from one company—and that’s it.”
Beware “Another bite of the apple!”
Editor
March 17, 2026
LyondellBasell Declares Force Majeure After Bayport Fire
March 17, 2026 1 min read
LyondellBasell has announced force majeure on propylene oxide (PO) after a fire at its Bayport Choate site in Texas on March 12, market sources said.
The fire forced part of the complex to shut unexpectedly, reducing PO output. The company is still reviewing the damage and has not yet indicated when operations may resume. Further updates on supply allocations and restart timing are expected once the assessment is completed.
The Bayport unit is one of LyondellBasell’s major PO assets, with capacity of about 600,000 tonnes per year. The site also produces propylene glycol and glycol ethers.
In the near term, the disruption could tighten PO availability and increase cost pressure for downstream polyether polyol markets.
Source: LyondellBasell
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