Entries from Asian Chemical Connections tagged with 'Shell Chemicals'

Petchems And The Non-Profit Motive

By John RichardsonAS the US contemplates raising its ethylene capacity by up to 29 percent by 2017, we would be fascinated to know whether the companies involved in these proposed expansions, and the "cheer leader" chemical industry observers spurring them...

Saudi Gas Costs Head Higher

By John Richardson SAUDI Arabia's petrochemical producers could soon, or may already, be paying $1.50-2.00/mmBTU for their ethane supplies. "We are not sure whether the proposed increase from $0.75/mmBTU will take place from 1 January this year or from early 2013,...

Conventional Thinking Revisited

By John Richardson CONVENTIONAL thinking is that when you have a strong feedstock advantage, you should go ahead and build more petrochemicals capacity on the assumption that growth will eventually be sufficient to absorb volumes. Hence, several more green-field...

The Benzene Versus Propylene Debate

By John Richardson SHELL Chemicals put an argument forward last week that polystyrene (PS) had regained ground from polypropylene (PP) as a result of expensive propylene. And the petrochemicals major forecast a bright future for both PS and expandable...

Shell Firms-up Interest in New US Capacity

By Malini Hariharan Shell Chemicals has become the latest entrant to a steadily growing list of companies looking at new cracker investments in the US. As we wrote about last week, Shell Chemicals told us in an interview at the...

APIC Delegates Focus On Capacity

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...

NEW EO-Derivative Investments Planned For Singapore

      Source of picture: chemindustry.org.sg     By John Richardson NEW plants could be built in Singapore downstream of Shell Chemicals plans for optimising high-purity ethylene oxide (EO) production in the city state, the blog was told recently...

US Polyethylene Competitiveness To Surge in 2012

George Mitchell of Devon Energy - The "Father of Shale Gas" By John Richardson US polyethylene (PE) input costs will be 50% less than those in Europe and Asia beyond 2012, says a new report by Morgan Stanley. The extraordinary...

ExxonMobil Says Qatar C2s Still On

By John Richardson EXXONMOBIL is insisting that its cracker and derivatives project with Qatar Petroleum is still on despite a media report to the contrary. It certainly seems as if there are several suitors for this particular bride - perhaps...

Singapore's New Petrochemicals Strategy

Singapore's Marina Bay Sands complex   Source of picture: Washington Pos     By John Richardson "SUCCESS in this business, whether you are tracking price direction or planning new investments, is 95% about feedstock," says a senior European-based sales manager...

Singapore Confirms Plans For 6-8m tonne/year Ethylene

Jurong Island Source of picture: www.pcs.com.sg   By John Richardson SINGAPORE plans to eventually raise its ethylene capacity to 6-8m tonne/year from the 4m tonne/year which will be reached when ExxonMobil's second cracker complex at Jurong Island is on-stream, Liang...

Qatar Petroleum, ExxonMobil Delay Qatar Cracker

By John Richardson Qatar Petroleum and ExxonMobil have delayed the start-up of their 1.6m tonne/year cracker and derivatives project in Qatar, my colleague Anna Jagger reported on ICIS news yesterday - quoting sources familiar with the project. This confirms an...

Report: ExxonMobil Qatar Project In Doubt

Up In The Air? Source of picture: www.marcdussault.com.blog   By John Richardson QATAR Petroluem and ExxonMobil have started talks to dissolve their partnership for a 1.6m tonne/year cracker project in Qatar, according to an article published earlier this week by...

Asia Resurgent On Refinery Integration

  Source of picture: omniglobal.com     By John Richardson A FASCINATING theme to emerge from last week's Asia Petrochemical Industry Conference (APIC) in Mumbai was a growing belief in refinery integration in Asia as a means of being able to...

Ethylene Margin Feast On Borrowed Time

By John Richardson A remarkable feature of early 2010 has been the tremendous margins enjoyed by Asian ethylene producers. Profitability in February, up until the end of the second week, had been the strongest since 2001, according to my colleagues...

Shell would like to build two MEG plants in Qatar

  By John Richardson An ethane shortage is slowing Shell Chemicals' ambitions for building at least one cracker complex in Qatar, Ben van Beurden, executive vice-president of the company said last week. "Ideally, we'd like to build two crackers...

Has Shell Made The Right Choices on MEG?

Looking pretty - the new Shell plant at night: Sourceof picture: Shell Chemicals   By John Richardson WHEN Shell Chemicals officially opened its OMEGA process 750,000 tonne/year monoethylene glycol (MEG) plant in Singapore today, it mentioned how its global production...

Qatar-Shell Sing Deal Feedstock, Investment Options

Singapore's Jurong Island Source of picture: www.pcs.com   Qatar Petroleum International (QPI) sees Singapore as a good base for expanding in to the Far East, said CEO Nasser Al-Jaidah yesterday after the announcement of the new partnership with Shell. QPI and Shell...

Qatar Petroleum buys into Singapore petchems

Just picked up on the interesting news (not sure how big a deal this is) after attending one of those long interminably-long internal planning meetings. But on this occasion we at least were discussing something useful - not just...

Uncle Sam back from the dead?

Shell Chemicals, oil price, McKinsey, shipping costs,