Home Blogs Asian Chemical Connections

Asian Chemical Connections

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 […]

Europe Not Clutching At Straws

By John Richardson EUROPEAN ethylene and polyethylene (PE) market participants seem a million miles away from buying into the idea that the recovery in Asia is sustainable. This is a realistic view following last week’s interest rate rise in China, the fifth in eight months – and with the announcement over the weekend that inflation in June […]

Saudi Petchem Output Increase

By John Richardson YESTERDAY’S fractious OPEC meeting – where members were unable to agree on a proposal by the four biggest members to raise output – may not necessarily be good news for petrochemicals. For a long time the industry has worried about Saudi Arabia’s potential to raise crude output from approximately 8.5m barrels a […]

Consolidation Thai style

By Malini Hariharan The long-awaited merger between PTT Chem and PTT Aromatics (PTTAR) was finally announced last week. A presentation made to financial analysts gave details on what the merged entity will look like, planned synergies and opportunities for growth. The new company with a total petrochemical capacity of 8.261m tonnes/year and petroleum products capacity […]

Asian C2 Muddle Reflects Wider Uncertainty

By John Richardson ASIAN ethylene markets appear to be in a muddle over the Middle East supply picture. Click here for a graph of the latest pricing – EhylenePrices1March2011.ppt  A shipping industry source we spoke to recently insisted that more rather than less C2s were being exported from the region as opposed to the reduced […]

Looking West for support

By Malini Hariharan As Asian markets head towards a quiet week, producers are probably hoping that developments in other regions will support their efforts to raise prices once trading resumes after the Chinese New Year holidays in the first week of February. European producers successfully raised February ethylene contract price by Euro25/tonne while propylene moved […]

Chemicals And Polymer Prices Behave As We Predicted

By John Richardson AS the blog had anticipated would happen, there were sharp retreats in some chemicals and polymers pricing late last week on the steep declines in equity and crude prices. Polyethylene (PE) fell by $70-130/tonne, according to our colleagues at ICIS pricing, as the Dalian Commodity Exchange once again demonstrated that it has become […]

What’s next for Honam?

By Malini Hariharan Honam Petrochemical’s plan to acquire Malaysia’s Titan Chemical could well be the start of the South Korean major’s foray overseas. “Honam will keep looking for other M&A opportunities in the chemicals space,” said a source close to the company. Their interest is not only in basic chemicals but also intermediates and speciality […]

All mixed up in the West

By Malini Hariharan The blog has been writing about the softening in olefin and polyolefin prices in the US. But the European market presents an interesting contrast offering arbitrage opportunities for those willing to take the risk. Operating rate reductions have been reported at crackers in Priolo, Italy; Tarragona, Spain; Carling, France; Cologne, Germany; and […]

Corrected:Asian Naphtha-Ethylene Spreads Touch 2007 Levels

We should have originally written ‘integrated low-density polyethylene (LDPE) in paragraphsix, but instead wrote linear-low density PE (LLDPE). It’s now been corrected and apologies for the error – we will be buying some better glasses (less of this “we” – it’s actually “me”!)   By John Richardson The rise in ethylene prices to what ICIS pricing says is […]

Jump to page: