By John Richardson MOHAMED Al-Mady, the CEO of SABIC, told the Financial Times yesterday that he worries about Europe losing out on petrochemical investments because of its reluctance to embrace shale gas. "Some European companies already made the decision to go...
By John Richardson ASIAN naphtha cracker operators have cut production in response to the exceptionally weak China market, according to ICIS. Yeochun Naphtha Cracker Centre (YNCC) has, for instance, lowered operating rates to 90 percent from 100 percent at its...
By Malini Hariharan Work on commercialising a green route to paraxylene (PX) purified terphthalic acid (PTA) and other aromatics is speeding up. US companies are at the forefront of recent developments. Virent is looking to produce a sugar-based aromatics stream...
By Malini Hariharan One more US cracker and propane dehydrogenation (PDH) project has been confirmed. After months of speculation Formosa Plastics has announced that plans to build a 800,000 tonnes/year ethane cracker, a 600,000 tonnes/year PDH plant and a 300,000...
By Malini Hariharan More news has emerged on the Trinidad methanol and methanol-to-olefins (MTO) project covered by the blog last week. Chinese major Sinopec is likely to be SABIC's partner for the $5.3bn project. The two companies are in negotiations...
By Malini Hariharan Recent moves by methanol majors to boost their capacities have caught the blog's attention. Sabic's chief financial officer Mutlaq al-Morished disclosed at a press conference yesterday in Dubai that the company is in talks for a methanol...
By Malini Hariharan It is the results season and numbers posted so far confirm that the last quarter has been rough with depressed demand, weak product prices and firm feedstock costs affecting earnings. Siam Cement Group's EBITDA for the chemicals...
By Malini Hariharan A power outage at Al-Jubail has forced crackers and downstream plants at Al-Jubail, Saudi Arabia, to shut down. ICIS news reports that all polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) plants at the site were shut yesterday. It is...
By John Richardson POLYETHYLENE (PE) inventory levels are thought to be so low at the converter end of the business in China that a case is being made for a strong recovery in demand and pricing post-Lunar New Year. A...
By John Richardson THE US petrochemicals industry might be in danger of being lured into old thinking about the future direction of the global economy as a result of abundant shale gas. Despite the short-term markets gloom which we...
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...
By John Richardson CHEMICAL company third quarter financial results point to what has been apparent at ground level for some time now - a struggle to achieve volume growth over 2010. My colleague Nigel Davis, who edits in the Insight...
By John Richardson Confidence among Middle Eastern petrochemical producers remains high because they obviously now that as long as oil prices do not collapse they will continue to make excellent money, said a chemicals analyst. The blog believes that there...
By John Richardson EUROPEAN polyolefin markets are at one of those fascinating tipping points following the recent price recovery. Ethylene spot prices rebounded late last week with July sales much better than those in June, wrote Nel Weddle, European ICIS pricing...
By Malini Hariharan CEOs of Asian petrochemical companies worried about rising feedstock costs, a weak economic outlook and profitability should have been reassured to read over the weekend that even Mohammed Al-Mady, vice-chairman and CEO of Sabic is having sleepless...
By Malini Hariharan The fight against anti-dumping duties (ADD) imposed by India on polypropylene (PP) exported by Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Oman is not yet over. Some of the major companies that face ADD have taken the matter to the...
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...
By John Richardson THE article of faith publicly expressed at last week's Asia Petrochemical Industry Conference (APIC) in Fukuoka, Japan, was that the current problems with demand in China and India were only temporary. Discussions the blog held were packed...
Ali Naimi, Saudi Arabia's oil minister, suggests more oil supply could be on the way Source of picture: stonesoupstationblogspot.com By John Richardson CHEMICALS analysts at HSBC have added further weight to the argument that 2011 could...
By John Richardson Yesterday we suggested that demographic challenges in the West, the strain on resources resulting from rising consumption in emerging markets and rising inflation should heavily feature in discussions at this week's World Economic Forum in Davos....
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