Resin, Rubber & Fiber Manufacturers NAICS 3252

Oct 21, 2025 - Soft Market for Polyethylene

• Exxon Mobil is pausing development of a potential polyethylene (PE) plant in Texas due to "market conditions," the Houston Business Journal reported in October. Exxon didn’t say why it’s pausing the $8.6 billion project, but the pause coincides with similar moves other plastics companies are making in response to a surprisingly soft PE market. University of Houston’s VP of Energy Innovation Ramanan Krishnamoorti attributes the tough PE market to the decline in demand for exports to China, typically the largest importer of US PE, as well as India. While US producers saw huge increases in high-density polyethylene exports to China in 2023 and 2024, the volume trend isn’t keeping up this year, explains Krishnamoorti. Other plastics companies pulling back on PE include Dow Chemical and Houston-based LyondellBasell, which is delaying two projects in the Houston area to preserve capital during the downturn in PE demand.
• While many businesses are struggling to respond to President Trump’s tariff turmoil, higher trade barriers are creating opportunities for some US manufacturers, The Wall Street Journal reports. One such beneficiary, Grand River Rubber & Plastics, is seeing an increase in new orders and inquiries from customers looking to avoid import tariffs, per WSJ. The Ohio company’s President Donny Chaplin says two previous customers that had switched to Chinese suppliers a few years ago recently came back wanting to buy rubber gaskets from Grand River again. Together with three makers of oil filters, the new business will be worth about $5 million a year if completed, or roughly 10% of Grand River’s revenue, requiring the company to hire and expand production lines, Chaplin told WSJ. However, 10% baseline tariffs and higher duties on goods from China are increasing Grand River’s costs for supplies including machine tools and rubber.

• President Trump has signed an executive order banning federal use of plastic straws saying they “don’t work,” the AP reported in February. The EO reverses federal purchasing policies that encourage paper straws and restrict plastic ones and directs federal agencies to stop buying paper straws “and otherwise ensure that paper straws are no longer provided within agency buildings.” Part of Trump’s executive order was aimed at reducing the price of paper straws, which can cost between five to 12 cents per unit compared to less than two cents per unit for plastic straws, according to Clean Water Action. Also, a White House Fact Sheet claims the use of paper straws carry health risks citing a study that found that while PFAS (aka forever chemicals) were found in paper straws, no measurable PFAS were found in plastic ones. Plastic straws are typically made from polypropylene (PP) and polystyrene (PS) plastics.
• Producer prices for resin, rubber and fiber manufacturers fell 2.5% in August compared to a year ago, after rising 3.5% in the previous August-versus-August annual comparison, according to the latest US Bureau of Labor Statistics data. While industry producer prices have been trending downward since mid-2022, they remain historically high. Employment by resin, rubber and fiber manufacturers grew 2.7% year over year in July, although industry job growth is flat over the past decade. Meanwhile, the average annual wage at chemical manufacturers rose 2.4% YoY in August to $31.49 per hour, $0.40 short of its peak in July, BLS data shows.