Chemicals, Aromatics, Solvents & Intermediates

January 13, 2025

Platts harmonizes US MX, toluene coverage; discontinues industrial ethanol assessment

Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, harmonized the market coverage of mixed xylene and toluene in the US, and discontinued its industrial ethanol assessment Jan. 13.

MX and toluene

As part of this project, Platts discontinued weekly symbols for solvent toluene and solvent xylene price assessments on the FOB Chicago and FOB US Gulf basis.

Platts continues to publish daily nitration grade toluene and MX assessments on the FOB US Gulf basis, which are accompanied by a weekly aromatics commentary on Fridays. The Tuesday instance of these prices is now reflected in the Solventswire and on all solvents pages, with Solventswire also carrying the previous Friday's weekly aromatics commentary. The monthly averages for the FOB USG price assessments continue to reflect an arithmetic average of all daily assessments during the month.

Discontinued assessments

FOB Chicago FOB US Gulf
Solvent Toluene Weekly: AAHRW00, M. Avg: AAHRX00 Daily: AAHRU00, M. Avg: AAHRV00
Solvent xylenes Weekly: AAHSA00, M. Avg: AAHSB00 Daily: AAHRY00, M. Avg: AAHRZ00

Replacement assessments

FOB US Gulf
Nitration grade toluene Daily: PHAAR00 (M1), AASMY00 (M2); W. Avg: PHAWW04 (M1), AASMY04 (M2); M. Avg: PHAWX03 (M1), AASMY03 (M2)
MX Daily: PHBHN00 (M1), AASMZ00 (M2); W. Avg: PHBHO04 (M1), AASMZ04 (M2); M. Avg: PHBHP03 (M1), AASMZ03 (M2)

Ethanol

Platts discontinued its FOB DSP assessment of industrial ethanol simultaneously due to a lack of market activity.

Platts continues to publish ethanol benchmark assessment - Chicago Ethanol Pipe (AALRI00) - as part of its biofuels package.

Discontinued assessments

Proposed for discontinuation Weekly code Monthly Average
Industrial Ethanol 190 FOB DSP cts/gal Weekly AANTP00 AANTP03
Industrial Ethanol 200 FOB DSP cts/gal Weekly AANTR00 AANTR03

The affected assessments were published in Solventswire, Platts Connect and Platts Market Center, as well as in the Price Point database under the abovementioned codes.

The changes were first proposed in the subscriber note here.

Please send any questions or comments to petchems@spglobal.com and pricegroup@spglobal.com

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