By John Richardson CHINA exported 45,000 tonnes of purified terephthalic acid (PTA), which underlines how a weaker Yuan is being used as a way of compensating for weaker local demand up and down the polyester chain. The same applies to many other industrial chains. PTA imports also halved in the first quarter of this year […]
Asian Chemical Connections
The “Why” Behind Sinopec’s Investment Freeze
By John Richardson SINOPEC has announced that it will halt some of its new petrochemicals investments. This could involve the postponement of up to three cracker projects with a combined ethylene capacity of 2.8m tonnes/year, according to this excellent story from my ICIS colleague, Fanny Zhang. The company confirmed that the 1m tonnes/year Qingdao Petrochemical […]
The Cost Versus Growth Conundrums
By John Richardson SOME petrochemicals companies believe that their big cracker and derivatives projects will produce positive returns in a few years, when, in fact, it could take much longer, say several industry sources. The sources feel that the growth story in emerging markets is becoming ever-more complex, involving ever-more degrees of ambiguity. Headline arguments about, for […]
China Drives Down Yuan To Protect Jobs
By John Richardson WE first warned in December 2011 that as China’s economic reforms accelerated, Yuan depreciation was a strong possibility. And then in May of last year, we picked up the theme again by again suggesting that as growth in China slowed, Beijing would attempt to support the economy through boosting exports via a […]
The “Logic” Of US Ethane Exports
By John Richardson THE search for feedstock advantage is constant, given that some 80-90% of variable costs for any petrochemicals producer consists of the cost of acquiring raw materials. Hence, my colleague Nigel Davis, in this excellent Insight article, writes: The US company, Enterprise Products, is planning an ethane export terminal on the US Gulf […]
China Pulls Back From Funding Other Emerging Markets
By John Richardson IT important to be relentlessly realistic about the risks no confronting emerging markets in general, now that China is focusing much more on its own internal problems and needs. One of these risks – reduced funding of infrastructure and other projects in the emerging world by Chinese banks – was highlighted in this […]
Narendra Modi’s Infrastructure Challenge
By John Richardson NARENDRA Modi looks as if he will end up leading the BJP-coalition to victory in India. This has led to a surge in optimism that he can repeat the “economic miracle” he achieved in Gujarat at a nationwide level. We wish him every success, but, of course, politics is the art of […]
China Faces Lower Growth In Q2
By John Richardson WE conducted another of our highly unscientific surveys amongst polyethylene (PE) producers and traders last week and the message remained the same: Persistently weaker-than-expected downstream demand in China. “Many downstream plastics processors have seen persistently weak orders for plastics finished and semi-finished goods,” added the commentary accompanying the ICIS pricing polypropylene (PP) […]
Free China Outlook Webinar On Wednesday
By John Richardson THE blog has spent the last three years focusing heavily on China’s economy. Our analysis, which predicted China’s about turn, has now gone mainstream. And now we are running two free webinars on Wednesday (23 April), which will provide our readers with our views on where we think China is heading over the […]
What Chinese Q1 GDP Growth Really Tells Us
By John Richardson ONE of the comments the blog often hears is that even though China’s GDP growth has clearly decelerated, when measured against anywhere else in the world its growth rates are still tremendous. This argument is deeply flawed and belongs to the world of “wishful thinking”. The key, instead, is to first of […]
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