Trusted market intelligence for the global chemical, energy and fertilizer industries
The above chart, courtesy of trade data experts GTIS, shows the extraordinary leap in China’s polyethylene imports this year. They have surged 63% January – October in 2009 (blue bar) to 6.7 million tonnes versus 4.2 MT in 2007 (green bar) and 2008 (orange bar). Many countries have seen massive rises. Iran exported 404kt vs [...]
In difficult times, the industry looks to the major companies for their advice. And they certainly provided this at our 8th European Conference (co-organised with ICIS), Shell’s Jonathan Forbes-Lane, European GM, focused on the “gale-force recession” now underway. He expected “prices to stay volatile and unpredictable because they were being pulled in opposing directions by [...]
The blog congratulates Teesside’s industry leaders on their 10-point plan to safeguard the future of the area’s chemical industry. They have worked very quickly since the initiative was established last month. Clearly, self-help can only take the industry so far, in today’s crisis. It is clearly right that government support should also be provided. The [...]
Peter Drucker wrote some of the most useful, and widely read, books on management. The title of one of his main works, ‘Management, Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices’, sums up his serious approach to the role. This month is the centenary of his birth, and the Financial Times marks it with a report of a celebratory conference [...]
Oil markets are looking increasingly uncertain as we come to year-end. One example of this is a new survey of floating storage by oil brokers, Gibson. This found 42 ships in use, up from the 29 seen in September. Normal levels are just 5 – 7 vessels. Another is OPEC’s weaker discipline on quotas, which [...]
The excellent ICIS European margin report for ethylene shows an interesting picture this week. The chart above compares contract margins based on naphtha (red line) and LPG (yellow line) feedstock. Both have been slipping since September, when they peaked at €398/t and €357/t respectively. This week, they are over 40% lower, at €232/t and €208/t. [...]
The US housing market was worth $35bn a year in terms of chemical sales in 2006. In that Boom year, 2.2m homes were built, each using $16k of chemicals. But as the chart above shows, from the ACC’s weekly report, there has been a steady decline since then. The recent introduction of the $8000 first-time [...]
LyondellBasell (LBI) yesterday confirmed the rumoured takeover bid from Reliance. In a statement posted on its website, it says it has “received a preliminary non-binding offer from Reliance Industries Limited to acquire for cash a controlling interest in the company contemporaneously with the company’s emergence from Chapter 11 reorganization“. It noted “this offer is in [...]
The irresponsibility of some parts of the global banking system continues to upset the blog. First, there was news that several banks are planning to award themselves huge ‘bonuses’, based largely on their trading success. Yet the money they are using for this trading has mostly been provided by central banks and governments. And it [...]
IPIC, Abu Dhabi’s International Petroleum Investment Company, made a very shrewd acquisition of Nova at the bottom of the market, earlier this year. And now they are apparently in talks with a number of major chemicals companies about joint ventures and possibly acquisitions. The key for IPIC is to obtain technology, with which they can [...]
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