The European Commission announced it has started monitoring the import volumes of certain ethylene and ammonia products, which are used for plastics production, amongst other applications.
The surveillance covers imports of copolymers of ethylene and alpha olefin (LLDPE, for example), as well as urea containing more than 45% by weight of nitrogen (fertiliser), and ammonium sulphate, which is mainly used as fertiliser but also has applications in the plastic industry as a flame retardant or processing aid.
The surveillance will apply to all countries and should be in place for three years, the Commission said in a March 24 statement.
“This surveillance has been put in place in response to evidence of a significant and potentially injurious increase in the EU market share of imports of the chemicals,” the Commission explained. “This increase appears to be the result of production overcapacity, notably in China, as well as the imposition of trade defence measures on imports of the products by a growing number of countries.”
The EU expects the information gathered to allow the Commission to ‘react quickly to level the playing field’ in case there is a surge of imports potentially injuring the EU industry.
The Commission added that the surveillance does not restrict imports but rather provides a ‘timely, structured overview of import trends and other fact-based information’.
The EU is gathering import statistics using its customs surveillance system, updated daily. The ethylene surveillance report is available here. Ammonium here. Urea here.
The ethylene database shows that a total of 189,960 tonnes of ethylene and alpha olefin have been imported into the EU since Jan. 1, as of March 28. The value totals nearly € 196 million.
Imports from the United States top the table in terms of volume so far, at 125,147 tonnes. Imports from Saudi Arabia follows at 47,867 tonnes; South Korea at 6,303 tonnes; Canada at 4,680 tonnes; UAE at 1,697 tonnes; Singapore at 1,476 tonnes; Qatar at 1,360 tonnes; Japan at 696,000 kilograms; Thailand at 316,801 kilograms; and Switzerland at 160,567 kilograms.
China comes 11th on the list at 151,773 kilograms. Other countries on the list are the United Kingdom, Israel, Turkey, Indonesia, India, Egypt, Tunisia, and Argentina.
Tariff war
The announcement comes as the EU and the US are gearing up to a tariff war that could particularly hit US exporters of polyethylene resin. In 2024, about 15% of US PE resin — almost 2 million tonnes of material — was sold to EU countries, according to Esteban Sagel, principal with Chemical & Polymer Market Consultants in Houston.
The EU has identified more than 1,700 products for possible countermeasures to the US 25% percent tariffs on EU steel and aluminium, including 60 resin and plastic products. When matched to US product codes, the proposed EU tariffs are estimated to impact $5.9 billion in US resin and product exports to the EU, based on 2024 export values.
Support for chemical industry
As the European chemical industry struggles with decreased competitiveness, the EU has recently published the Clean Industrial Deal, a business plan to make decarbonisation of European industry profitable.
The Commission has committed to mobilising over €100 billion to support EU-made clean manufacturing. Details of how this financing will work are expected with the publication of the Clean Industrial Deal State Aid Framework in the second quarter of 2025. It should include policies that will allow for a quicker approval of State aid measures for the roll-out of renewable energy, deploy industrial decarbonisation, and ensure sufficient manufacturing capacity of clean tech decarbonisation.
The EU is also working on tailoring the Clean Industrial Deal to different sectors, including chemicals and automotive.
The Chemicals Industry Package, set for adoption in late 2025, will recognise the strategic role of the chemicals sector as 'industry of industries' and of critical molecules. It will propose targeted initiatives to enhance the sector’s competitiveness, modernisation as well as support production and innovation in Europe.
France, Spain, the Netherlands, Czechia, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia have called for an EU-wide Critical Chemicals Act in addition to the Clean Industrial Deal.
The idea is to introduce a Critical Chemicals Act, in line with the Critical Raw Materials Act. The signatories argue that the identified chemicals are essential to the competitiveness and sovereignty of the EU economy.