Europe: HFC demand increases, but prices remain stable

According to the latest European price monitoring survey, the demand for HFC refrigerants continues to grow in the fourth quarter of 2020, but the price remains relatively stable.

As in the previous quarter, the increase in demand is attributable to the gradual reduction of previous inventories this year. Reports of rising prices by Chinese producers are also considered to be one of the reasons, but demand has been lower than in previous years.

Compared with prices in 2018-2019, prices in 2020 will generally stabilize or decline.

At the manufacturer level, the prices of R134a and R410A continued to fall, while the prices of distributors, original equipment manufacturers and service companies declined slightly or remained stable.

The price of R404A has also fallen across all supply chain levels, but the price of service companies has risen slightly.

Except for the slight increase in R404A substitutes, R448A and R449A, the prices of substitutes at the distributor and OEM level remained basically unchanged or slightly decreased.

The service company reported that the purchase price of the recycled refrigerants R404A (EUR/kg) and R422D (EUR/kg) dropped, while the price of the recycled refrigerant R507A remained at around 50 EUR/kg. On the other hand, the price of recycled refrigerant R404A has risen to around 98 Euros/kg, and R507A has reached around 113 Euros/kg.

The purchase price of recycled R404A is 10% lower than the original R404A price, and the sales price is 35% higher.

Reported prices for quota authorization range from 0.60 euros to 3 euros per ton of CO2e.

Except for a French service company that said it was unable to obtain R1234ze from a supplier, there were no reports of refrigerant supply problems.