As cheap as chips Source of picture: europa.eu By John Richardson THE decline in the Euro has resulted in investors downgrading their expectations of a Yuan appreciation taking place over the next few months. Last week, Yuan foward contracts were factoring in a zero chance of appreciation over the next three months after […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Old Assumptions Might Belatedly Change
Source of picture: http://www.andrewgriffithsblog.com/ By John Richardson DOOM-MONGERS are scratching their heads as to why the global petrochemicals industry has remained in such a healthy state over the past 18 months. Old assumptions are, as a result, being challenged. It would be a painful irony if these assumptions are changed just as a […]
End-users Acting As Traders Influence China PE Price Correction
By John Richardson LAST week’s sharp decline in polyethylene (PE) pricing in China is being partly blamed on converters who occasionally act as traders liquidating their raw-material inventories. Trading activity by end-users can account for more than 10% of total sales activity in the Chinese market in any one week, the blog has previously been […]
Price slide intensifies
By Malini Hariharan The weakness in Asian markets is spreading with steep drops also being reported in olefin prices. Ethylene prices dropped by $160-170/tonnes last week while propylene declined $90-110/tonne, writes my colleague Soo Hwee, ICIS pricing editor for olefins. The poor market conditions were attributed to softness in crude oil and naphtha prices as […]
Chemicals Face More Financial Sector Damage
Greed definitely not good for chemicals…. Source of picture: reelmovienews.com By John Richardson THE chemicals industry is once again confronting the risk of being badly damaged by the ever-more interconnected oil, other hard commodity, currency and equity markets. As fellow blogger Paul Hodges told us last November: “Demand visibility – even without as yet […]
Ouch! China High Inventories At Worst Possible Time
Is The China Party Over? Hope you’ve got plenty of aspirin.. Source: The Daily Telegraph By John Richardson Apologies to our readers for a fairly quiet week on the blog this week – my fellow blogger Malini and I have been immersed in a week of training courses for our rapidly-growing training business, ICIS […]
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