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Asian Chemical Connections

The BRICS Fallacy

By John Richardson THE above chart, from a new Research Note released by fellow blogger Paul Hodges, exposes the fallacy that BRICS and emerging-market growth can by themselves rescue the global economy. And, as we have highlighted before on this blog, there are no long-term guarantees that China, the big driver of BRICS growth, will continue […]

Reliance Goes Boldly

Source: ICIS   By John Richardson Reliance Industries is going boldly (no split infinitives here) where nobody has gone before: It is to build a cracker, which could eventually produce 1.6m tonne/year of ethylene, based entirely on off-gas feedstock supplied by its 1.24m tonne/year of refinery capacity at Jamnagar, Gujarat, India. Nobody has attempted anything […]

India PVC Reflects Macro Problems

By John Richardson WHAT is happening in India’s polyvinyl chloride (PVC) sector reflects some of the macro-economic challenges we discussed earlier this week. An additional 8.5m tonnes of PVC pipes demand could be generated in the space of just five years if the government can get its act together on economic reform, said an Indian […]

BRICS Version 2

Mind the gap – India’s rich and poor     Source of graph: http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/sonalde-desai-the-great-indian-poverty-game/469351/   By John Richardson INDIA’S economy is expected to grow at its slowest pace for a decade as a result of political gridlock, tight monetary policy and the weak global economy, according to a Reuters’ poll of economists. As we discussed […]

China’s Luxury Goods Risk

  By John Richardson THE “luxury end” of China’s polyethylene (PE) market is being heavily targeted by overseas producers and the results so far have been pretty spectacular, according to one of the producers. “The annual growth in demand for higher value grades has been tremendous – two times GDP,” said a senior executive with […]

India: Muddling Through Won’t Do

By John Richardson Indian friends of the blog, many of whom work in the country’s chemicals industry, have long expressed their view that their country will always muddle through. Their trust in government to solve long-standing infrastructure and logistics problems has always been low. Through a great deal of hard work, and enormous amounts of […]

India Chems Look For Govt Support

By Malini Hariharan The Indian government is being asked to give a fresh boost to the chemicals industry in the 12th Five Year Plan beginning from 1 April. A working group for the chemicals industry has detailed key measures that the government must take to ensure growth of 12% during the plan period (2012-2017). Top […]

India polymer exports to Pakistan set to rise

By Malini Hariharan After years of waiting truck movement of petrochemicals from India to Pakistan has started paving the way for Indian companies to boost their exports. Indian Oil Corp (IOC), which regularly exports polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) by rail to Pakistan, successfully sent its first consignment to Lahore last week from its petrochemical […]

India demand slides for PVC and PS

By Malini Hariharan The last year has been rough for Indian polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and polystyrene (PS) producers with demand for their products showing almost no growth. PVC consumption is likely to increase by only 1-2% year on year in the fiscal year ending on 31 March 2012, said S Gopal, managing director of Chemplast […]

More PTA for India

By Malini Hariharan India trails far behind China in the polyester business but there is growing interest in new investments that also extends upstream to purified terephthalic acid (PTA). The latest entrant to the projects listing is Thai major Indorama Ventures which has signed an MoU with Indorama Synthetics (India) for an integrated PTA, polyester […]

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