By John Richardson AGAIN, DON’T say I didn’t tell you. In my 11 October blog post, having talked to people who know what they are talking about, I flagged up the possibility that China’s energy shortages could be fixed a lot quicker than many people were suggesting. Those in the know about China told me […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Asian and Middle East PP exporters lose ground in China but enjoy substantial US sales growth
By John Richardson CHINA’S imports of polypropylene (PP) look set to fall to some 4.4m tonnes in 2021 – a 33% reduction over last year’s imports of 6.6m tonnes. The China Customs department trade data for H1 2021 when annualised imply 4.7m tonnes of imports for the full year 2021. But as around 60% of […]
Iran may gain 48% of total China HDPE imports, 85% of LDPE imports by 2025 because of new deal
By John Richardson IRAN and China earlier this month signed a wide-ranging economic and security agreement that has been under negotiation for five years. The deal involves $400bn of investment in the overall Iranian economy with as much as $280bn of spending on oil, gas and petrochemicals. Before I crunch the data and demonstrate how […]
Don’t Underestimate The Middle East
Source of picture: Wikimedia Commons By John Richardson THE theme of last week’s Gulf Petrochemicals and Chemicals Association (GPCA) conference in Dubai was “Moving Downstream, Creating Added Value and Sustainable Growth”. There is a huge effort underway in the Gulf region, as we have discussed before, to move away from only basic petrochemical […]
Saudi Crackers Could Soon Be At 100%
By John Richardson SAUDI ARABIA’S crackers could soon be running at operating rates of 100% again following widespread reports quoting the al-Hayat newspaper that the country’s crude production is set to rise to 10m barrels a day in July. Al-Hayat, a Saudi newspaper, is seen as a reliable indicator of government intentions. We reported last week how […]
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 […]
China Remains Weak On Government Tightening
By John Richardson CHINA’S polyethylene (PE) market – a reasonable proxy we often use for the chemicals and polymer industries as a whole – remains worryingly weak, according to several traders and producers interviewed by the blog this week. Modest restocking did take place last week, leading to a very slight improvement in sentiment and […]
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