The Plastic Resin Buyer Brief

A resin buyer saves $84K on a renewal, then gets a $201K increase letter 90 days later. Tyler Wheeler and Michael Workman play it out live: same buyer, same seller, same five resins. The only thing that changes is what the buyer knows. In this live session, Michael Workman plays a distributor account manager and Tyler Wheeler plays the purchasing manager at Harbor Point Molding, a custom injection...

At last week's MAPP Benchmarking & Best Practices Conference in Indianapolis, a room of processors negotiated the same resin account twice: first with instinct and a competing quote, then with a cost-based target range.  Michael Workman shares what happened in the room, including a live demo between a former buyer and a former seller built on five questions. He then applies the masterclass les...

At a blackjack table, the dealer shows you one card and keeps the other face down. Resin producers are doing the same thing heading into Q4. Increase letters are out on polyethylene (5¢ in September plus 7¢ in October), polycarbonate (10¢ from a single producer), PA66 (8¢ from BASF), PA6 (5–8¢), and polystyrene, with talk of up to 10¢ for October. Michael Workman flips over the hole card. Supply i...

Michael Workman runs the tally across nine resins this week and finds something worth every buyer's attention: exactly two producers are pushing a September price increase completely alone. BASF stands by itself on an 8-cent PA66 increase; one polycarbonate producer is alone on a 10-cent push. Four resins — PE, PS, PVC, and PA6 — have more than one producer testing an increase but nothing close to...

WTI crude jumped 13% in a single week, crossing above $100 per barrel for the first time since May. The trigger: rapidly escalating US-Iran military tensions and a surge in tanker attacks in the Strait of Hormuz. But the crude spike doesn't affect every resin market the same way — and that distinction determines your entire September negotiating position. In this episode, Michael Workman covers al...

Three nylon 6 producers sent increase letters as Labor Day weekend approached. The feedstock most directly tied to nylon 6 pricing moved in the opposite direction the same week. In this episode of Resin Market Moves, Michael Workman starts there — then works through every major resin market with a single question in mind: before you respond to anything in your inbox this week, what do you actually...

Six resins are carrying September price increase nominations simultaneously — the broadest coordination since early Q2. The supply and demand picture says something different than the letters in your inbox.   This week, Michael Workman breaks down the two-track market that's running through the back half of 2026: commodity resins where buyer leverage is structural and real, and benzene-linked resi...

What does the rep on the other side of your resin call actually know? Today you find out — because you get to hear both sides. We ran a live negotiation with 72 buyers watching simultaneously. Tyler Wheeler played the buyer. Michael Workman played the distributor rep. One fictional injection molder (Vandelay Plastics, yes — Seinfeld fans, you're welcome), real market structure, real numbers. THE F...

Crude oil jumped nearly $7 this week, pushing WTI close to $88 per barrel. For resin buyers, the predictable question follows: Does higher crude mean higher plastic resin prices? This week, the answer depends heavily on what you're buying. Michael Workman breaks down the latest Resin Market Moves and explains why supply conditions continue to favor buyers in polyethylene, polypropylene, and PVC —...

WTI crude surged over 5% last week, peaked just shy of $84 a barrel on Strait of Hormuz shipping disruptions, then pulled back to $81 by Thursday. The reversal was real. But the August benzene contract had already settled before the relief came. For polystyrene, ABS, polycarbonate, PA66, and PA6 buyers, the aftershock landed mid-week and it doesn't go backwards because crude came off its highs. In...

The resin market runs on a two-track system right now, and the two tracks are moving in different directions. Michael Workman breaks down where buyers stand on August 10 and exactly what to do about it before the week is over. Commodity resins - polyethylene, polypropylene, PVC, PET, nylon 66 - are still operating in summer-favorable conditions. Increase initiatives are out there, but the fundamen...

PE producers threw the first pitch of August this week — 5 cents per pound in price increase nominations against a market where inventories are above the three-year average, ethylene costs are flat, and July is still expected to settle lower. This episode breaks down where every major resin stands as the August count opens, which materials are sitting in hitter's counts, and why some of those at-b...

The resin market has long favored suppliers, but it doesn't have to stay that way. In this Plastics News info session, Michael Workman, Bill Bowie and Tyler Wheeler explain why resin buyers often negotiate with incomplete information, how to separate true feedstock costs from supplier margin, and the practical strategies procurement teams are using to regain leverage. Listen to learn how leading b...

This week's episode covers all nine major resin markets under one organizing theme: what the flags are reading, and whether buyers trust them enough to act. The answer depends on which market you're in. PE, PP, PVC, and PET are flying green flags — leverage is clear, fundamentals are aligned, and the data is telling you to negotiate aggressively now. For PS, ABS, PC, PA66, and PA6, the flag has tu...

Resin buyers are entering the second half of July with two very different market conditions. Polyethylene, polypropylene, PVC and PET continue to favor buyers. Inventory remains elevated, no meaningful July price increases have emerged, and current supply-demand fundamentals continue to support aggressive negotiations. But another group of resins just received a weather advisory.  Rising crude oil...

PE settled down 15 cents for June. PP settled down 8.5 cents. No proposed price increases in either market for July. Resin buyers are holding the leverage across most major commodity materials. But a mid-week geopolitical shock just changed the math for a significant portion of the market. The collapse of the U.S.-Iran ceasefire framework pushed crude back above $70 per barrel and sent benzene spo...

H1 2026 was one of the most active nomination environments in recent memory — north of 90 proposed increases across commodity and engineering resins in a single quarter. The justification was consistent: feedstock costs, supply disruptions, force majeure. Some of that was real. A lot of the ask on top of it wasn't. In this episode, we break down what H1 actually looked like from the buyer's side —...

PE inventories are at 46 days of supply. PP exports collapsed 17.6% in May. INEOS is permanently closing 400,000 metric tons per year of PS capacity in Illinois. Caprolactam dropped over $136/mt in a week. Crude oil fell nearly $5/bbl. And somewhere in all of this, the World Cup is selling out bars. This week's episode connects the dots between the summer plastics demand story — beverages, pool se...

Three signals converged in the resin market this week — and they all point in the same direction for buyers.  WTI crude dropped 9%+ on the U.S.-Iran peace agreement. Polyethylene posted its biggest inventory build in 11 years. And benzene, the key feedstock for PA6, PA66, ABS, and PC, settled at a multi-year high for June — but spot has already reverted to the $3s, setting up a July inflection poi...

The ACC's preliminary May data hit this week and it's decisively buyer-friendly — but only if you're paying attention. In this episode of Resin Market Moves, Michael Workman walks through the week's key market developments across nine major resin families: PE's MASSIVE build one of the largest single-month gains in years — and why it undermines this month's $0.10/lb increase initiative PP at 1.97...

It was dance recital week in the Workman household — and the chaos behind the scenes at the studio is a perfect metaphor for where the resin market sits right now. May settled cleanly on the surface. But TotalEnergies is still under force majeure in PP. A Phillips 66 turnaround is coming in June. Celanese is rationalizing PA66 capacity ahead of a Singapore unit closure in July. And inventory numbe...

May settlement week just drew the clearest line in months between markets where cost drives pricing and markets where producers are simply testing what buyers will accept. PP's PGP contract settled down 7 cents per pound. The resin market is expected to follow. That's a legitimate cost decline — buyers who document it and push back in writing capture it. PE settled flat for May, but a 10-cent-per-...

A supplier price increase letter hits your inbox. The clock starts immediately. Most buyers have two weeks to respond. Their suppliers are already working with current market intelligence, while many procurement teams are validating claims with data that's 30 to 60 days old. In this episode, Michael Workman and Brian Balboa break down what happens when a resin supplier announces a price increase —...

My son graduated from 5th grade yesterday. Watching him walk through that arch of balloons, one thought kept in my head, that what got him here isn't going to be enough for what's next. The same is true for resin buyers right now. April was the inflection month. The $0.30/lb PE increase that landed. The PP run-up. The benzene spikes that pushed nylon 6, polystyrene, and the rest of the aromatics h...

The resin market divided itself in May — and the right move in one half is the wrong move in the other.  In this week's episode, Michael Workman breaks down what's actually happening across all nine major resin markets and why buyers who treat them the same right now are leaving money in one category while overpaying in another.  PE is going flat despite a $0.20/lb nomination — buyer resistance is...