Home Blogs Asian Chemical Connections

Asian Chemical Connections

Costly Oil Hurts US Industry

  By John Richardson  THE higher that oil prices go the more the US petrochemical industry’s margins have expanded. Petrochemical prices are oil-driven and, therefore, have to go higher as crude becomes more expensive, whereas the cost of shale gas-based ethane keeps on falling due to rising supply. US petrochemical producers are cracking increasing amounts of […]

China And Inflation

By John Richardson MUCH excitement heralded the announcement that February inflation in China had fallen to a 20-month low of 3.2 percent – well within the government’s annualised target of 4 percent. This led to the belief that the government would boost bank lending, and maybe further low bank-reserve requirements and interest rates. No doubt this […]

China Refining: Where Is It Heading?

By Malini Hariharan Yesterday’s post talked about refining capacity additions in China and India over the next few of years and how this will contribute to weak refining margins across the region. The blog obtained a preview of a presentation being made by Liao Na, information director of C1 Energy, at a China oil and […]

China’s methanol economy

By Malini Hariharan China is well set to take on an even larger role in the global methanol industry. The country already accounts for a little over 40% of demand and its share is set to expand rapidly in the coming years. The blog recently caught up with Ken Yin, the China methanol markets editor […]

China Economic Hype And Crude Oil

Let’s catch the bus from now on….  Source of picture: hybridcars.com   By John Richardson THE blog has long been worried about the difficulty, probably the impossibility, of accurately measuring real Chinese growth. And it gets harder as the country now has some 130,000 polyolefin traders and distributors, according to an estimate we heard last […]

Aromatics get complicated

By Malini Hariharan Asian aromatics markets are getting increasingly hard to read not merely because of volatile crude prices. Demand, usually strong at this time of the year, has so far failed to materialise. The US gasoline season has started on a slow note. In Asia, benzene demand has been hit by maintenance shutdowns and […]

Refinery Profit Squeeze Threat To Petchems

“Any Old Iron?” Source of picture: http://www.investorfsbo.com/refinery.html   By John Richardson A LONG-TERM shift in refinery economics is posing a major threat to petrochemical margins – along with the delayed supply crisis that’s likely to hit the industry at some point over the next year. “Refiners, when the global economy was booming and particularly after […]

Should Indonesia Add Capacity?

      Source of picture: wartakota.co.id   WESTERNERS can often by unbelievably patronising about Asia’s efforts to climb up the economic self-sufficiency ladder. “South Korea has no business being in petrochemicals,” said a very annoying US industry executive many years ago – one of those situations where your correspondent wanted to punch someone’s lights […]

History will surely repeat itself

The mood at the recent NPRA International Petrochemical Conference in San Antonio, Texas, was mixed, despite all the economic gloom. Some producers said they were still making money – especially those selling into manufacturing sectors benefiting from a rise in exports due to the weak dollar. What’s certain, of course, though is that things will […]

Jump to page: