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Asian Chemical Connections

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 […]

The View From Ground Level Is Different

By John Richardson The macroeconomic headwinds are building, making it hard for some of those at the ground level in Asian polyolefin markets to foresee anything but fragile and tough trading conditions. This is in marked contrast to the fairly optimistic outlook presented by some of the big, well-integrated and differentiated chemicals and polymer companies […]

Polyolefin End-users Assume The Risk

By John Richardson POLYOLEFIN end-users in China and Southeast Asia began to re-stock in significant numbers last week on anticipation that supply is going to remain tight for the next few weeks at least, the blog has been told. “There was a feeling among the converters that because of scheduled maintenance work in August and […]

The US Debt Crisis And Asian Chemicals

By John Richardson THE consequence of either a failure by the US to raise the debt ceiling and/or a downgrading of the country’s Triple A debt rating would have obviously have serious consequences for the Asian and global chemicals industries. Just how serious nobody really knows as we are in uncharted waters. At the very […]

The Edginess, The Nervousness Continues

By John Richardson THE edgy and nervous nature of the recovery in Asian polyolefin markets became even more apparent from discussions the blog held with traders and producers during a visit to Singapore last week. Such was the uncertainty that there were mid-week reports of falls in pricing. By Friday, though, one producer told us […]

Heading for extinction

Unbelievable, incredible – what prehistoric planet do these people live on? Please see below for a rant from a-soon-to-be-extinct species of business leader – the US chemicals executive against Barack Obama. I have my doubts about Obama, but at least he has a brain bigger than a shrivelled pea (unlike certain other holders of the […]

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