London, Aug. 10 (ICIS) -- Profits at contract cracking units in Europe rose on a month-on-week basis, driven by higher ethylene prices in August, ICIS profit analysis showed on Monday.

Naphtha cracking units performed better than lP-based cracking units due to the small increase in naphtha costs last week.

The European ethylene contract reference price for August was set at 785 euros/ton, up 21 euros/ton from July.

For the week ending 7 August:

The cost of naphtha rose by more than 1%

LPG value increased by 6%

Naphth-based contract margins rose 26 per cent, with a slight increase in the value of by-products.

Margins on LPG contracts rose 9 per cent and by - product credit rose slightly.

Demand was flat and supply adequate in the week to 7 July, despite some unexpected cracking unit problems.

Spot prices were flat as the market was calm.

The spot profit of naphtha and LPG fell slightly due to the increase of raw material cost and the large decline of LPG process profit.