European refrigerant gas producer prices continued to rise in Q3 of 2021, with R134a particularly affected.

The latest European refrigerant price monitoring survey for Q1 2021 from Öko-Recherche, reports price increases for R134a at all levels of the supply chain. R134a, prices increased significantly at the level of gas producers compared to Q2 and significantly increased for service companies’ purchase prices on the market.

While OEMs can benefit from longer-term fixed price agreements, they reported average price increases of 3% for R410A, R407C and R134a. The R404A price decreased by 2%.

A number of factors are blamed for the increases. In addition to the 2021 quota reduction, refrigerant production volumes by non-EU suppliers have been reduced, partly due to raw material supply shortages, which has led to strong price fluctuations on the market and increases in production costs.

Significant freight and transport problems due to combined effects of the blockade of the Suez Canal and Covid-19 measures have led to significant cost increases, bottlenecks in transport capacity and delivery delays, with the entire supply chain affected.

Prices of alternatives such as HFC/HFO blend solutions remained mostly stable, with some slight increases in gas distributor purchase prices.