By John Richardson WE have been on a magical mystery tour during the second of half 2013 in an effort to discover what has really driven the 14% year-on-year increase in polyethylene (PE) apparent demand in China in January-August – the latest data that is available to us. Apparent demand is imports plus domestic production. […]
Asian Chemical Connections
China PE Demand Up By 13% On Environmental Concerns, Restocking
By John Richardson CHINA’S apparent demand for polyethylene (PE) surged by 13% in January-June this year (red column) compared with the same months in 2011 (blue), according to data from Global Trade Information Services. This represents a further improvement from the 10% increase in PE demand in the January-May period of 2013. “This is all […]
US Petchems Face Competing Gas Interests
By John Richardson A MAJOR political battle is taking place in the US over the future of the booming natural gas industry which could well have major implications for the country’s petrochemicals industry. There was angry reaction from Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris on 6 December over the contents of a Department of Energy (DOE) report on […]
Dow: China GDP Growth 3-5 Percent
By John Richardson DOW Chemical’s Andrew Liveris has changed his views on China as a result of an economic slowdown that seems to have taken many people by surprise. “China’s economy has continued to decelerate as European exports suffered,” said Liveris, as the company last week announced a 34 percent fall in profits year-on-year […]
Dow Sees China Growth Acceleration
By John Richardson DOW Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris said in an earnings call, following the release of the company’s Q1 results: “China is stabilising and growth is likely to accelerate later this year as their government keeps shifting its policies to inspire and incentivise domestic growth.” An industry observer agreed, and added: “I’m still sticking […]
Chem Q3 Results Show Flat Growth
By John Richardson CHEMICAL company third quarter financial results point to what has been apparent at ground level for some time now – a struggle to achieve volume growth over 2010. My colleague Nigel Davis, who edits in the Insight section of ICIS news, wrote in this article last week: “In the fourth quarter of 2011, […]
Place Your Bets – Who Is Right?
By John Richardson DOW Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris said in a 27 July conference call that China’s industrial economy was still doing very well. “They’re managing themselves down very nicely,” he added, pointing to official GDP growth numbers of 8-9%, which translate into chemicals and plastics growth of 12-13%. “We’re not seeing any issue here […]
Dow To Sell PP to Braskem
DOW Chemical is to sell its polypropylene (PP) business to Brazil’s Braskem for $340m, according to our colleagues at ICIS news. The blog is digging around for the implications for Dow in Asia. For the time being, however, here are some initial thoughts…. Included in the sales are two plants in the US and two […]
Dow’s Liveris On The Mark On China?
By John Richardson Dow Chemical’s CEO, Andrew Liveris, was reassuringly upbeat about the state of demand in China last week when he described it as “quite robust” during an analysts’ call on the release of the company’s Q1 results And very significantly, given that we can trust that his comments were based on plenty of […]
A Toxic Combination: Sentiment And Oil Prices
By John Richardson Yesterday we suggested that demographic challenges in the West, the strain on resources resulting from rising consumption in emerging markets and rising inflation should heavily feature in discussions at this week’s World Economic Forum in Davos. Chemical industry leaders who could be attending include Mohamed Al-Mady, CEO of SABIC, Andrew Liveris, CEO […]
Jump to page: