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Asian Chemical Connections

Ukraine-Russia: Assessing petrochemical demand losses

To follow all the breaking news on the crisis and the implications for petrochemicals and energy markets, please click here for the ICIS subscription topic page. If you need a trial of ICIS news, please let me know. By John Richardson NOW THAT an invasion has started, the critical issue for petrochemicals companies is whether they can […]

Bio-based Local Ethylene Plants A Good Alternative

By John Richardson THE proven approach for success in petrochemicals is, of course, to find cheap feedstocks somewhere and build a world-scale cracker complex. That “somewhere” doesn’t necessarily have to be close to the final customers in emerging markets. For example, the Middle East and more more recently the US can afford to ship large […]

Uncertainties Over US Gas Pricing

By John Richardson NOBODY saw the shale gas technological breakthroughs coming and thus the revival of the US petrochemicals industry took everybody by surprise. Today the accepted wisdom is that the US industry will remain a license to print money for many years to come. But as we have discussed before, the substantial amount of […]

Northeast Asia PE Weakest Margins

  Source: ICIS pricing Weekly Asian PE Margin Report   By John Richardson The slide above shows how Northeast Asian naphtha-based polyethylene (PE) producers are struggling as a result of the weak China market (dark blue bars). And it confirms what we were discussing yesterday: The US, with its ethane advantage and with reportedly high […]

US Polyethylene Targets China

  By John Richardson SIGNIFICANT volumes of US polyethylene (PE) are heading to China as the States attempts to compensate for weaker domestic sales, understands the blog. Despite the fall in US prices, margins remain strong, creating arbitrage opportunities. US May contracts for polyethylene (PE) settled down by 7 cents/lb ($154/tonne, €125/tonne) from April, following […]

China coal-based MEG moves ahead

By Malini Hariharan China’s second coal-based monoethylene glycol (MEG) plant is due to start in the second half of 2012, reports ICIS news. The plant, located in Hebi, Henan province, will have a capacity of 250,000 tonnes/year and will be operated by Wuhan Engineering, Haiso Technology, and Hebi Baoma Group. The three companies successfully tested […]

Middle East looks overseas for growth

By Malini Hariharan The US shale gas buzz is now drawing Middle East companies with Sabic’s CEO revealing yesterday that the company is considering investing in a US cracker. Sabic would pursue the US cracker on its own or with a partner, reports ICIS news. A shortage of ethane in Saudi Arabia means Sabic has […]

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