Asian Chemical Connections

Recent comments by An Qiyuan, chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Committee for Shaanxi, warned of the environment and social catastrophe facing the northwestern province of China because of a shortage of water.
He was referring to the diversion of water from Shaanxi to Beijing ahead of the Olympics and hydroelectricity plants which he believes should be closed down.
Water is a particularly scare resource in western China - where most of the country's coal gasification projects are located. The technology is arguably a wasteful, heavy consumer of water.
And this raises an interesting dilemma for Dow Chemical - potentially a joint investor with Shenhua Energy in a coal-to-chemicals project in Shaanxi.How do you balance economics with the environment?
Coal gasification could represent the promised land - provided you can solve the logistics problems and provided the long-running doubts over the viability of methanol-to-olefins technologies are unfounded.

Shortly after I wrote this article (see below) on the doom and gloom surrounding China polyolefins markets, hey presto, prices rallied and I was wondering whether I needed to be wiping egg off my face.

But shortly after the slight rally occurred, a polyolefins trade told me it was likely to be the last margin grab, the last push to maximise earnings on the back of stronger crude as stock markets around the world tumbled and investors piled into commodities. However, prices did enter new territory - in the case of most grades of PP, for example, breaching the US$1,5000/tonne barrier on a delivered basis.

I think he could've been right. Based on the assessment of PE and PP markets by ICIS pricing last Friday, it certainly seems as if the recent retreats in crude (brought about by a realisation that weaker economic growth will ultimately undermine demand for oil and other commodities) and concern about the impact of the likely US recession has led to greater caution among buyers.

And, as I keep saying, this caution comes as the buyers prepare to benefit from the great supply surge.