Asian Chemical Connections

"Hello, my name is John Richardson.
I had an accident, and I woke up in 1973.
Am I mad, in a coma, or back in time?
Whatever’s happened, it’s like I’ve landed on a different planet."
Before you think I've been at the methanol again, please follow this link to the fantastic BBC TV series, Life On Mars, where a UK police officer living in 2006 is in a road accident and is transported back in time to 1973. This is definitely not a waste of polycarbonate - buy the DVD.
Like Sam Tyler of the series, it felt like I was back in time this morning when reading of the IEA report on an oil-supply crunch in five years.
It was back in 1973, if you remember, that an oil crisis triggered the US recession of 1973-75.
William Poole, president of the Reserve Bank of St Loius, argues that high oil prices this time around haven't triggered a recession because of factors such as low inflation. This is largely the result of China and the rest of the developing world driving down costs.
But how long will this continue if the IEA is right? And how will the developing world reconcile itself to not having enough raw materials to sustain the huge boom in demand for the things made, ultimately, from oil? What will be the social, political and economic implications of the looming supply crunch on ever-more wealthy populations demanding the same mass-consumption lifestyles that westerners enjoy?

As everyone focuses on when the next downturn might arrive, macro issues such as the implications of a likely US withdrawal from Iraq are rarely publicly discussed.
But if I were on the board of any company making investment decisions, I'd be worried.
If the US withdrawal from Iraq is well managed then fears such as those expressed in this article will come to nought. Sadly, "Iraq" "the US" and "well managed" are words and phrases that rarely share the same sentence and so the future looks a little shaky to say the least.

As the Middle East struggles to find labour and raw material supply with contractors' order books bursting at the seams, the Chinese seem to have no difficulty in executing their projects.
See below for detailed analysis of what's happening with the current wave of Chinese crackers. Suffice to say here that nearly all of China's cracker projects will be on time, unlike the Middle East where the delays are mounting.
Contractor markets are forecast to be tight until 2008--09. Could the Chinese be able to leverage their way into joint ventures in the Middle East before the market slackens by offering a one-stop shop of labour, equipment, contractors and financing?
Technology supply, marketing reach and cash have been the traditional means the foreigners have used to get their hands on highly competitive Middle East gas supply. Perhaps the Chinese might also offer lump-sum turnkey contracts plus a dollop of cash from one of China's state-owned banks with highly attractive lending terms, given that they are weaker on technologies and marketing.
The Middle East project builders would be, of course, happy and so would the Chinese government. Its priority is energy security, whether at the oil and gas or basic petrochemical level.

Methanol producers have been enjoying the best of times, but to paraphrase good old Charles Dickens, they may not necessarily be heading for the worst of times.

There is a staggering amount of capacity due on stream by 2012. By that year, global capacity will stand at 66m tonne/year according to
Mark Berggren of consultancy, MMSA. . This compares with his estimate of global demand of only 50m tonne during that year. 10.58m tonne/year of this capacity will be in the Middle East - representing 25% of the current global total - with China accounting for an even bigger slice of the pie. For more a detailed analysis of methanol see the latest ICIS insight Asia Middle East report Download file

But as Mark and the whole of the methanol world concedes, it is hard to estimate what consumption will be from a whole raft of new end-uses. These include direct blending of methanol into gasoline, dimethyl ether and fuel cells for both cars and computers.

But still, if demand growth is insufficient, you have to pity the smaller, higher cost producers .

In the case of the Chinese coal-based producers, they will be towards the bottom of the cost curve because of low feedstock costs and will increasingly be able to compete with the Middle East.

To carry on with the Dickens quote, from A Tale of Two Cities, he talked of the French Revolution as being "the age of foolishness" and "the age of wisdom".

Perhaps the wonderful world of methanol will also represent such divergent fortunes, with the poor foolish US and European producers facing Madame Guillotine.
I

Alan Greenspan refused to categorise conditions in the US housing market as a bubble when he was chairman of the Fed.
But now he's retired and while plugging his memoirs, he admitted in a TV interview the other day that lots of froth in different parts of the US made up what was, in reality, one giant bubble - similar to the one that went pop in 2001 with the collapse of the dot com shares.
Take a look at this article from The Economist which suggests that there are six countries - Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Greece and Spain - where a housing market crash is even more likely than in the US. In these countries, the article suggests, average house price inflation is 47% above what is justified by fundamentals.
And then look at Asia. In Singapore, property prices have doubled - even tripled in some cases - over the last two years. Speculation reached fever pitch until an increase in government taxes and the global credit crunch brought sanity to the market a few weeks ago. Now there is talk is of another property price collapse similar to the 1997 meltdown.
Then there are the property booms in India and China.
You can argue, as the Asian Development Bank does, that Asian fundamentals are so strong that the continent can ride out a US credit-crunch driven recession.
But what goes up has to eventually, surely, come down and bubbles have historically always gone pop.
And so from this calculate how many polymers and chemicals go into the construction industry - from PVC to formaldehyde - and think of a worst-case scenario for your business. This could be the froth being taken out of the market - meaning property prices falling back to where they should be based on the fundamentals. But as is often the case when sentiment turns bearish, prices could collapse below their real value. Fantastic news for bargain hunters with nerves of steel, but not much use if you're operating a PVC plant.
The global property bubble could pop as early as next year, if the Fed 50 basis point cut and any future measures fail to bring the credit crisis under control.

In the good or maybe the bad old days depending on your standpoint, methanol was a fairly straightforward product.

You had chemicals demand and that was more or less it. But as the extended analysis below explains, chemical producers who use methanol as feedstock have to factor in direct blending of gasoline into methanol, DME, biofuels and fuel cells as shapers of demand.

Direct blending of gasoline into methanol and the use of DME as a transportation fuel are the biggest of these two new sources of demand in China. Expect a big increase in consumption from these two applications over the next few years.

Whereas the US has opted for ethanol in order to increase energy security (and for bogus environmental reasons), China has chosen the methanol route based on its big coal reserves.

The $64,0000 question is what this wil mean for the affordability and pricing of methanol for chemical consumers.

See below for an extended interview with Shell Chemicals vice president, Ben van Beurden, who talks of the search for new feedstock sources. He raises the possiblity of using syngas from the Pearl GTL project in Qatar to make methanol and then olefins. Or perhaps the high paraffinic naphtha and ethane from the same project will be the way to go for Shell in Qatar?

Meanwhile, more investment in China looks likely. Read on......

As oil prices keep on falling, it might be tempting to forget the big picture. I had another frustrating conversation yesterday with a contact who believes that there's nothing to worry about on crude (it was all downs to speculators, he said) and so we could carry on as normal once the economic crisis is over.

Nonsense. If his views are prevalent in his company, his company will eventually be out of business.

Just as an example of how the nature of demand could change, see this article from the Economist about green buildings.

Formaldehyde demand could fall as could demand for the chemicals used in sealants ad adhesives.

But opportunities for increased sales of plastics could exist in "vacuum" windows.

A sustained spell of low oil prices might damage the push towards a sensible energy future.

The crisis will also make it harder to find the money for research and development of new products to provide for this future.

Is my colleague in London a cat lover? I am, but did not take offence at the analogy.

If I knew when chemicals prices were going to rebound, I would tell you - but only for some hefty fees.

By Nigel Davis
LONDON (ICIS news)--Beware the 'dead cat bounce'. Global chemical market intelligence service ICIS pricing editors are seeing some spot prices in Asia moving up from recent lows although contract prices remain severely depressed.
Are these the first signs that feedstock-to-product price differentials are recovering?
A dead cat bounce is a "figurative term used by traders in the finance industry to describe a pattern wherein a spectacular decline in the price of a stock is immediately followed by a moderate and temporary rise before resuming its downward movement, with the connotation that the rise was not an indication of improving circumstances in the fundamentals in the stock," according to Wickipedia. It is derived from the notion that "even a dead cat will bounce if it falls from a great height".
As with the world's stock markets, it is too early to call the upturn with anything approaching a degree of certainty. Chemical prices globally are falling because of much weakened feedstock costs.
Oil prices this week have dipped below $50/bbl which is hardly a position from which chemicals prices might be expected to recover.
But looking beyond that, it is the global demand slowdown that is giving the worlds' chemicals markets the jitters.
Industry economists work with real data and they have little visibility. Their forecasts make salutary reading.
The American Chemistry Council's (ACC's) chief economist, Kevin Swift, for instance this week told the New York Society of Security Analysts (NYSSA) that chemicals production in the US could fall by as much as 5.7% next year. This is a forecast for the sector excluding pharmaceuticals.
In the ACC's 2008-year end analysis and outlook Swift notes that forecasting now involves considerable uncertainty.
The general consensus, however, is that recession is spreading across the globe and this is affecting the business of chemistry worldwide.
"Global business of chemistry growth has essentially stalled since earlier in the year, with outright decline in the developed nations and slowing growth in most developing nations," the ACC's report says.
"As a result, global output will moderate significantly in 2008 and will further slow in 2009 before a recovery emerges in 2010. For the business of chemistry in the US the recession will adversely affect demand into 2009, resulting in lower production volumes."
Other sector economists point to slowed growth in the US and a sharp slowdown in Europe, Japan and elsewhere. The outlook is hardly bright, whichever way you look at it.
Analysts have continued to talk about the lack of visibility for the sector which is battling the demand slowdown, or rather consumer disinterest, against the backdrop of lower feedstock and product prices.
Demand has all but ground to a halt in December across great swathes of the sector. The (multi) million dollar question is when will it return.
Producers widely believe that demand will return once price/feedstock cost ratios have stabilised. There will be a new floor from which producer might expect to see greater interest in their products and from which they could hope to drive prices higher.
But we have yet to find the floor in relation to feedstock costs. And the chemical industry's customers themselves are not exactly overwhelmed with new orders.
The situation could change but is unlikely to do so rapidly and certainly not before the start of the New Year.
Swift suggests that the indicators for the US economy will become more negative as consumers retrench, sales fall, inventories rise, and production falls, which is hardly good news for chemicals.
A similar patter of reduced payrolls, mderating incomes and a "viscoious self-reionforcing cycle" is seen across other major global economies.
It pays to look forward, certainly, but it is too early yet to be overly optimistic. "Things will get worse before they get better," Swift says in his latest ACC report, "but eventually they will get better when confidence returns".

Herein begins an occasional series where I offer advice on how to make a little cash.

By the way, is it me or do I get the sense that a lot companies haven't woken up to the severity of the crisis we are in? A recovery this, and I think quite probably next year, is out of the question. We need to find new sources of growth to replace the US consumer who isn't going to start spending money again in the same volumes as before for a good many years.

Anyway, here is my handy tip: purely by coincidence discover one day that quite fortuitously you have priced your local product so high - way above international levels - that this has attracted competitively priced imports. Take advantage of this wonderful, joyouous happenstance, this glorious instance of serendipity and lodge an antidumping petition.

Apologies for letting this blog slip again, but have been busy trying to make a crust presenting ICIS training courses.

And so as a bonus for our army of avid readers, here are my extended thoughts on the above:

In the midst of the economic crisis it would be so easy to bury your head in the proverbial sand and forget that once the recovery does arrive, the same old feedstock-cost problems seem almost certain to re-emerge.

"The profitability of your average Asian naphtha cracker with the right level of investment in derivatives was extremely good throughout 2007. This was particularly the case if you were processing C4s into butadiene," said an industry observer.

"But in the first half of last year margins turned negative because of rising crude and naphtha costs. Every manufacturer down every product chain frantically built inventory because of the fear that oil would reach $200/bbl by the end of the year."

Of course we all know what really happened: Crude prices collapsed in Q4 resulting in the biggest inventory losses in the history of the chemicals industry. Stocks simply had to be liquidated due to the non-availability of working capital.

Governments are lavishing cash on stimulus packages in a desperate effort to return the world to business as usual.

This might on the surface seem the sensible thing to do, but unless that money is spent wisely in boosting energy conservation and renewable technologies, a return to strong growth could hasten the return of $100/bbl plus crude.

There's not much sign of smart investment in China. A surge in bank lending has been used to ramp up steel and aluminium production and provide the finance for manufacturers of finished goods to run their plants hard in order to limit job losses.

China announced a $586bn stimulus package last November and then in March disclosed plans for heavy investment in ten industrial sectors, including refining and petrochemicals.

"While the (investment) proposals may boost the economy, and thus energy demand in the short term, they could also lead to continued growth of energy-intensive industries in the medium to long term," writes the UK-based Cambridge Energy Consultants in an article on its website.

The Obama administration has also come in for some pretty fierce criticism over a cap-and-trade-bill before the House of Representatives. Lots of emissions permits would be given free under the bill, offering benefits to coal-based electricity generators and other energy-intensive industries.

Oil industry experts are queuing up to warn that the economic crisis has cut capital investment by the small independent oil companies in harder-to-get-at conventional crude reserves. The oil majors have slowed down development of unconventional sources of oil, such as the Alberta Tar Sands.

OPEC warned at its recent meeting that the fall in prices was resulting in lower investment, and the Paris-based International Energy Agency estimates that spending on oil and natural gas exploration will fall by 21% this year over 2008. This would represent $100bn less spending on building reserves.

The implications of a return of very expensive crude are obvious for Asia's petrochemical industry, which is largely naphtha-based.

The Middle East gas-based producers would once again stand to benefit due to another surge in margins as, of course, global petrochemical prices are oil-driven.

But what if everyone suffers? Could the return to crude in excess of $100/bbl re-awaken inflation, further stoked by excess liquidity resulting from government stimulus packages?

The danger is that we might repeatedly see nascent economic recoveries nipped in the bud by surging energy costs.

BASF announced last June that it was looking at making petrochemicals from biomass using its catalyst expertise, and said that it had made good progress at the laboratory stage.

Numerous companies were also looking at methanol-to-olefins technologies, including ExxonMobil and LyondellBasell.
China's coal reserves offer an opportunity to make methanol into large amounts of olefins and transportation fuels.

Let's hope that cutbacks forced on companies by the financial crisis have not included freezing research into attempting to break the crude-petrochemicals link.

Another concern is the long-term outlook for naphtha supply.

The US announced new car and truck fuel-efficiency regulations last week, which, in the short term could increase the availability of the feedstock.

By 2016, all new autos will have to meet a 39 miles per gallon standard (mpg) standard, up 42% from the current 27.5 mpg. Trucks will have to do 30 mpg versus 23 mpg today.

"Europe was already heading for an enormous gasoline surplus by 2015 even before this announcement," said Paul Hodges, chemicals consultant with the UK based International eChem.

Diesel demand in Europe has surged at the expensive of gasoline. However, the Europeans have been able to export their way out of gasoline surpluses due to shortages in the States.

But these exports were already under threat from increases in US refining capacity and the mandated steep rise in ethanol blending, added Hodges.

"The new fuel-efficiency standards will increase the pressure for European refinery closures, but in the interim there could be a disposal problem.

"This could create the opportunity for cost-advantaged naphtha supplies into the hard-pressed European and US petrochemical industries."

Eventually, though, refinery capacity will have to close because, as one Asian-based oil and gas consultant put it "there is going to be a worldwide glut of gasoline. Even on a straight-run basis before you look at more advanced processing, there will be a big surplus requiring rationalisation."

It is far too early to say whether refinery closures will lead to a net reduction in available naphtha.

Asia is adding capacity as Europe confronts the need to rationalise. In 2009-10 alone, 2.7m bbl/day of refining capacity is due to be come on stream in Asia Pacific, according to oil and gas consultancy FACTS Global Energy.

But naphtha exports from the Middle East could decline as the region looks to crack more naphtha in order to widen its petrochemical-product slate.

In Abu Dhabi, for example, a naphtha cracker complex is due to start-up by 2013.

Anyone with either access to advantaged ethane, propane and butane or with a proven technology that breaks the refinery/petrochemicals interface might be OK during the next oil shock.

The key for Asian liquids-based producers without either of the above must surely be maximising feedstock flexibility.

This flexibility could include cracking more liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).

LPG should be in abundant supply once liquefied natural gas (LNG) demand is booming again on higher oil costs and rising environmental concerns.

LNG producers either extract the gas during initial processing or leave it in the LNG to be taken out at re-gasification terminals.

Whatever are the solutions, they need to be found and found quickly if surging stock markets are proof of a quicker-than-expected economic recovery.

"Bob, I think I we should give this up as I can't get a wireless connection and I couldn't be bothered to talk to anyone."
Source of Picture: Faculty.SMU.Edu

.
......and the effect on the quality of data and analysis is one of my big concerns - particularly at a time like this when petrochemical markets are becoming harder to fathom (many thanks to Andrew Keen and his excellent book, The Cult Of The Amateur).

The overwhelming volume of information on the Internet has led to the emergence of a new breed of journalist/company researcher/data gatherer.

No longer is it necessary to speak to people on the telephone and/or to interview them face-to-face.

Instead it is possible for the clever writer/researcher to compile an article from an Internet search. You can cobble together a convincing story (on the surface at least) by lifting data, analysis - and even quotes - without checking the accuracy for yourself.

The benefit of direct contact with multiple sources is that with experience and over time you get to work out who is reliable and who isn't from your assessment of character and motives etc; in other words, intuition.

There is no substitute for getting out of your comfy chair and travelling through the Chinese hinterland in search of the Holy Grail - real inventory levels (that's unless, of course, you are frightened of someone finding out that you are fraud with very little sincere knowledge of and interest in what you do).

Yahoo Messenger etc have further eroded the need for direct contact - again, taking away the human interaction which I believe is essential to get good quality information.

Now we have a generation of journalists/researchers who are spoilt - and I am sure overwhelmed also - by all the free information out there. Because you've never had to get off your proverbial rear end to tell a convincing story to your boss, you quite probably don't even know how to.

And more recently we have seen the emergence of an army of amateur and totally untrained citizen journalists, researchers and "experts" who can witness the riots in Burma from the comfort of their armchairs and nobody will be able to tell the difference (in other words, they make it up).

I was talking to a corporate relations officer of a certain International Oil Company the other week. He told me how one of his senior executives was so disgusted by the banality of the questions being asked that he gave the interviewer his business card back and said, "I think you should recycle this."

I once suggested to someone that while the Internet was of course essential (who would want to go back to parchment after William Caxton came along?), an experiment should be tried with young journalists/researchers/analysts etc.

I suggested that we should switch off the Internet, give them only a telephone, a travel budget and a list of contacts, along with some hard-copy resources, and assess whether they were able to assemble original and accurate information.

We could then offer training for those who fell below the mark. He accused me of being an "Old Fart".

But I am not sure how much of this was motivated by the fear of telling the Emperor he really had no clothes as opposed to a genuine belief that I was wrong.

"China, please please do what we did and spend what you might not be able to afford..."

Source of picture: The Daily Maily

Whether or not China's pace of economic recovery will be maintained would have become an intensely boring topic of discussion if it wasn't so important for all our livelihoods.

More data specific to polymers and chemicals has emerged as to just how staggering the rebound has been: Imports of un-compounded polyvinyl chloride (PVC) were up by 100% in the year to June compared with 2008, according to International Trader Publications Inc.

Benzene, vinyl-chloride monomer (VCM), methanol and propylene imports were up by 100-550-% during the same period, the publishing company added.

"During the last recession, when prices bottomed around December 2001-February 2002 period, there were also spikes in imports of some products into China," said Jean Sudol, the company's president.

"What was different then versus now is that fewer products were involved, the spikes were nothing like the magnitude we are seeing now, and the surge only lasted 1-3 months. This time it's endured for 7-8 months."

Evidence of weaker demand has emerged over the last few weeks.

At the risk of boring you yet again (if you are not too worried about your job), is this demand-decline partly the result of too-much of inventory re-building of chemicals, polymers and of semi - and finished-goods?

All will hopefully become a little clearer after the very-long Chinese national holidays from 1-8 October. It is hard to discern to what degree recent sales dips are due to business winding down ahead of this break, overstocking and bleaker economic prospects.

On the surface, a lot of the macro-economic numbers look terrific: Retail sales grew by 16.6% in the first half of this year and by 15.4% up until the end of August.

But scratch the surface and you find that retail sales include government purchases and shipments to shopkeepers before any sales to consumers are recorded.

"This makes them a very bad proxy for consumption," writes Michael Pettis on his blog, China Financial Markets. Pettis is a professor at Peking University's Guanghua School of Management.

Retail sales-growth was in excess of the expansion in GDP (gross domestic product) over the last six years, he adds.

"Consumption (real consumption and not the retail-sales numbers) has been growing over the past several years by about 8-9% a year, while GDP has been hurtling forward by 10-12% a year," he argues

"Not surprisingly, this implies arithmetically that consumption is declining as a share of GDP."

The China Economic Quarterly (CEQ), an online research publication, agrees that the retail sales numbers aren't much use in tracking genuine consumption. Even government officials don't attach much credence to them, it adds.

But, unlike the more-pessimistic Pettis, the CEQ believes it's well within China's capability to maintain GDP growth at 8-9% in 2010 (growth is expected to easily reach 8% in 2009).

The reason is that there is still plenty of money in China's state-owned banks to support high levels of lending with equal oodles of cash around to maintain investment in public infrastructure.

As to asset bubbles which might lead to drastic government slowdown measures, the "hysteria is premature", writes the publication in its third-quarter issue.

"Price-earnings ratios are well under half their truly speculative October 2007 peaks.

"Our detailed analysis (of the housing market) suggests that the pool of prospective upgrading -and investment buyers is so large that the market can continue to rally for another year or so."

But it warns: "Continued growth at 8-9% in subsequent years will depend on whether the government uses the time it has bought through monetary stimulus to push through domestic market reforms."

"We are pretty optimistic about financial sector liberalisation; less so about service-sector reform."

China has finally created a bond market, meaning capital is being more accurately priced rather than always handed out virtually free to state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

A new stock market for small -and medium-sized enterprises will probably begin trading in Shenzhen in the fourth quarter this year.

These measures should help shift the economy away from dominance by the SOEs towards what in theory are more-efficient private companies.

Extra credit mechanisms are also being created to increase the availability of consumer finance.

"But we have yet to see much evidence of a serious effort to deregulate service sectors, notably distribution and logistics, that remain sink-holes of state-dominated inefficiency," the publication adds.

Liberalisation and deregulation are crucial in re-balancing the economy away from exports and towards a genuine growth in consumption as a share of GDP.

"Don't trust the government, any doctor or any lawyer," I was once told by a drunken tour-guide in Greece before he started reciting poetry.

In this case we have to trust the Chinese government in the hope that it can do a better job than certain White House administrations.

You could argue that wouldn't be particularly difficult.

By Malini Hariharan (Malini is now joint blogger for Asian Chemical Connections)

The Indian government has announced 17 November as the date for a public hearing to discuss the provisional anti dumping duties that it had imposed in June on imports of polypropylene (PP) from Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Oman.

The hearing will give a chance to all affected parties to present their case. Such hearings are usually a formality and do affect the end result which is a confirmation of the provisional duties.

But I have been told that it may be different this time as the Saudis, led by Sabic, are likely to put up a spirited defense. The Saudis have been busy pulling lots of government strings for the duties to be revoked.

Sabic and Advanced Polypropylene were hit the hardest - duties on their PP exports range from $440-$820/tonne. I was told that one of the reasons for the high level of duties was 'the lack of cooperation in sharing data' when the Indian government had sent its questionnaire earlier in the year. However, this attitude appears to have changed.

There's a lot at stake here and this is why the 17 November hearing is crucial. India is already in surplus and looks likely to be in this position for the next couple of years. So there's every reason for Indian PP producers, Reliance Industries and Haldia Petrochemicals, to check competition. On the other hand, many Indian processors are unhappy as the duties would force them to rely on local supply.

For the Saudis, and also other Middle Eastern producers, India is not such a big market for PP. But the ADD threat is a worrying global trend that they want to ensure does not take off.

Besides India, China is investigating methanol and 1,4-butanediol (BDO) imports from Saudi Arabia. And the European Union (EU) is investigating on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) imports from United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Iran.

The growing protectionist measures have provoked a long chain of protests with the most recent one being in October by the Gulf Petrochemicals and Chemicals Association (GPCA).
The GPCA Secretary General Dr. Abdulwahab Al-Sadoun has said that the association will strengthen coordination with Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Governments to ensure that exports of petrochemicals and chemicals from the Gulf region are not restricted by anti-dumping regulations and other trade restrictions
"The GCC industry and our governments will not accept the application of anti-dumping regulations against exports of petrochemicals and chemicals from the Gulf. We have seen a surge in protectionist actions brought by countries to block imports. These cases are baseless and violate international rules," he said.
The investigations may not sound fair to GCC producers but they face an uphill task in convincing the Indian and Chinese governments to ease protection to local producers. A lot will depend on what the GCC governments can offer or withhold.