Oil Crunch Prompts Plastics Crisis in Asia

Asia is facing plastics shortages because of the oil and gas supply crunch caused by the war in the Middle East, with medical supplies, packaging, and consumer products most vulnerable to a shock, the Financial Times has reported. The biggest problem for the world’s largest plastics-producing region is the shortage of naphtha, a key plastics feedstock. As a result of the supply squeeze, the price of the feedstock has doubled in Asia, leading to higher prices for a wide variety of products, contributing to already worrying inflation trends…