Processing customers have chosen the best European plastics suppliers in 2018. At this year's EuPC annual conference on 24 May in Milan / Italy, the "Best Polymer Producers Awards for Europe 2018", the third year since the awards were launched by the Polymers for Europe Alliance (www.polymercomplyeurope.eu/pce-services/polymers-europe-allliance), were awarded. They have since become an integral part of the European plastics industry. Polymer consumers from all over Europe rated the performance of their suppliers in a confidential online vote based on five categories (polymer quality, regulatory compliance, delivery reliability, communication and innovation).

For this edition, six European raw materials producers ranked at the top of European processors' popularity scale for seven types of plastic. The special award for the highest polymer quality was given to PVC manufacturer Vynova (Tessenderlo / Belgium; www.vynova-group.com) with an overall score of 93%. MOL (Budapest / Hungary; www.molgroup.info) and Indorama Ventures (IVL, Bangkok / Thailand; www.indoramaventures.com) followed with overall scores of 88% and 87%, respectively.

There was a surprise for the polystyrene category. This year, no award was given to a European PS producer. According to the organiser, "no PS producer got the required number of votes and a score over 50%."

Borealis (Vienna / Austria; www.borealisgroup.com) took home the HDPE award with a ranking of 83%, and the Austrian company also received the award for LDPE with 93%. Repsol (Madrid / Spain; www.repsol.com) won in the PP segment with a ranking of 88%, and ExxonMobil Chemical (Houston, Texas / USA; www.exxonmobilchemical.com) won in the LLDPE category with a ranking of 84%. In the ABS category, Elix Polymers (Tarragona / Spain; www.elix-polymers.com) received the award with an outstanding ranking of 95%. Lotte Chemical (Seoul / South Korea; www.lotte.co.kr) was the leader for PET (80%) and Vynova had a 91% ranking for PVC.

As heard at Repsol's award presentation, the company's "customer-before-margin strategy" is verified by its third award in a row. A company representative told Plasteurope.com that despite sometimes difficult constraints, it has paid off to have reliable delivery, in addition to lifting previous force majeure declarations.

The date for the next round of voting for the "Best Polymer Producers Awards for Europe 2019" will be announced in September.

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The "Best Polymer Producers Awards for Europe 2018" as a PDF file