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Asian Chemical Connections

Asian Naphtha Cracker Spreads To Fall By 50% In 2018

By John Richardson ASIAN naphtha cracker operators will see a 50% decline in average spreads, or differentials, between their raw-material costs and finished product prices in 2018 compared with last year, according to my forecasts in the above chart. This will be the result of a further steep rise in oil prices and increased polyethylene […]

Asian Polyethylene: The Butadiene “War Chest”

By John Richardson HERE we go again. The above chart shows how the spread between CFR Japan naphtha costs and CFR Northeast Asian (NEA) butadiene prices has been steadily climbing over the last few months. In January of this year it reached $2,277/tonne – historically very high but still some distance from the all-time high […]

Dictating Chemicals Demand

    By John Richardson SOME commodity chemicals companies still assume that, if they build new supply, demand will always eventually catch up with supply. The risks of not building new capacities, at times of easy financing and feedstock availability, are also viewed as too great. These include deteriorating economies of scale and loss of […]

Butadiene Oversupply Threat

By John Richardson THERE is a lot of talk at the moment about on-purpose butadiene, via the butane dehydrogenation process, because of the recent extreme market tightness . The tightness is the result of a shift to lighter cracker feedstocks and reduced operating rates at naphtha crackers in Europe. Future feedstock patterns are also not […]

Butadiene Market Standoff

By Malini Hariharan Just days after a recovery in butadiene prices, downstream synthetic rubber producers are once again threatening to cut production as weak demand has pushed them in to a tight corner. Asian major Korea Kumho Petrochemical is looking at trimming the operating rate at its 210,000 tonnes/year polybutadiene rubber (BR) plant to 85%, and also […]

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