Don’t follow the herd… By John Richardson ISN’T it amazing how we keep getting caught out by the unexpected, from the global financial crisis to China is entering a period of much-lower growth? No, not really. As long as we keep being driven by the short attention-span of financial markets and the demands of quarterly […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Rising Labour Costs Threaten US Projects
By John Richardson RISING labour costs will impact the viability of US petrochemicals projects as a result of the surge in overall hydrocarbons construction activity, an industry source told the blog. “Unless companies lock-in their labour costs fairly quickly, before the big surge in activity ahead of numerous cracker and derivatives start-ups planned for 216-2017, […]
Nova Chems Company Of The Year
By Nigel Davis The ICIS Company of the year award goes to NOVA Chemicals, a company that has risen phoenix-like from near bankruptcy to produce a healthy set of financial results in 2011. Underlying its performance is the backing of a strong investor – the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) – canny management […]
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 […]
Multiple Energy Options In China
Source of table: The Economist By John Richardson WHEN you are an energy giant such as Shell you can afford to explore multiple avenues in an effort to profit from China’s long-term energy needs. Thus Shell re-affirmed last week that it plans to invest $1bn in a year in exploiting the country’s vast shale-gas […]
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 […]
China Coal-to-Olefins Ambitions
By John Richardson SOME 10-15m tonne/year of coal-to-olefins (CTO) capacity in China is being considered, has already received approval or is in the planning stage, according to a report by Woori. “Major coal companies, petrochemical companies and foreign petrochemical players are all known to be planning CTO plant construction in China’s north western regions,” says the South […]
Global Polyethylene Margin Picture
By John Richardson ASIAN high-density polyethylene (HDPE) margins have improved in June and July compared with the rest of the year, according to the above chart from the ICIS Weekly PE Margin Report. But the overall year-to-date trend illustrates how the industry has lacked pricing power as a result of persistently weak Chinese demand. August […]
Energy, Politics & Economics
Source of graph: http://thinkprogress.org/ By John Richardson DANIEL Yergin’s superb book, The Prize, describes how the history of the 20th century was shaped by oil and gas. Now we are entering a new era. Some 600,000 jobs have already been created by the US shale and oil gas revolutions, leading to hopes of […]
US Targets China VAT Rebates
Mitt Romney would declare China a currency manipulator Source of picture: Wikimeda By John Richardson China’s practice of providing value-added tax (VAT) rebates for importers of raw materials who then re-export finished goods is the subject of a new US Department of Commerce ruling. And a leading international trade lawyer […]
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