Source of picture: omniglobal.com By John Richardson A FASCINATING theme to emerge from last week’s Asia Petrochemical Industry Conference (APIC) in Mumbai was a growing belief in refinery integration in Asia as a means of being able to compete with the Middle East. Reliance Industries is planning a giant cracker complex based largely, […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Bursting China’s real estate bubble…
By Malini Hariharan …is not going to be easy and the Chinese government’s attempts to control sky rocketing prices will not work unless there is a change in the local culture, a chemical industry executive confidently predicted at last week’s Apic conference in Mumbai. I thought the executive was referring to the Chinese love for […]
Total Petrochemicals Makes Big MTO Progress
A Chinese coalminer Source: www.guardian.co.uk Over the next week, as well as keeping track of more immediat events, we will be reviewing and analysing what was said in and around last week’s Asia Petrochemical Industry Conference (APIC) in Mumbai. One of the most-interesting stories to emerge was a clear message from close to Total […]
APIC Confidence A Dangerous Thing?
Mumbai at night Source of picture: travelygan.wordpress.com By John Richardson in Mumbai POLYOLEFINS will not see a margin collapse this year due to persistently strong demand growth and continued problems with new-capacity start-ups, said numerous industry sources on the sidelines of the Asia Petrochemical Industry Conference (APIC) in Mumbai. The belief seems […]
Saudi Gas Shortage Will Last A Long Time
Goodbye to all of that Source of picture: www.gas2.org By John Richardson in Mumbai for the Asia Petrochemical Industry Conference (APIC) EXISTING Saudi Arabian crackers will continue to run at less than 100% until the Kingdom’s oil production returns to 10m bbl/day – and that’s not going happen for some considerable time, […]
Qatar eyes cracker capacity hike and propane cracking
By Malini Hariharan Ras Laffan Olefins Co (RLOC) is studying an expansion of its new cracker by using propane as a feedstock. At a recent news conference, Mohammed Yousef Al Mulla, general manager of Qatofin, the Qatar Petroleum-Total joint venture downstream of the 1.3m tonnes/year cracker, said that while the cracker was currently running at […]
All mixed up in the West
By Malini Hariharan The blog has been writing about the softening in olefin and polyolefin prices in the US. But the European market presents an interesting contrast offering arbitrage opportunities for those willing to take the risk. Operating rate reductions have been reported at crackers in Priolo, Italy; Tarragona, Spain; Carling, France; Cologne, Germany; and […]
US-Asia PP Arbirtrage Remains Uncertain
By John Richardson THE jury is out over whether the recent decline in US propylene prices will re-open arbitrage to Asia for polypropylene (PP). Arbitrage for ethylene has remained strong with Dow Chemical disclosing that 20% of its US production went to Asia during Q1 US propylene contracts for May settled at a reduction of […]
China Muddle And Confusion Continues
By John Richardson The muddle and confusion that has characterises forecasts for Chinese chemicals demand continues – and with all this persistent uncertainty comes a great deal of nervousness about volumes in the second half of 2010. So far so good for this year, despite a 43% drop in bank lending during Q1 2010 compared […]
China Chems Liquidity Boost To Continue?
Lots more empty ones like these? Source of picture: http://www.chrismartenson.com By John Richardson THE dramatic increase in China’s money supply during 2009 – the result of an estimated 10 trillion Yuan increase in lending over the previous year – might continue to support plastics and chemicals demand growth during the rest 2010, an industry source suggested […]
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