Entries from Asian Chemical Connections tagged with 'Vietnam'

PTA Price Decline Reflects Realities

By John Richardson The end of the eight-week long bull-run in China's purified terephthalic acid (PTA) pricing might well indicate a wider problem about to beset other petrochemicals: Reality undermining the positive sentiment of the early part of this...

Labour Supply After Chinese New Year

Chinese job seekers at a recruitment fair Imaginechina/Rex Features   By John Richardson As petrochemicals markets begin to slow down ahead of the Chinese New Year, which this year falls on 10 February, a lot of attention is, as always,...

China Textile Exports Decline

Source: http://www.economist.com/  By John Richardson RISING China labour costs are compounding weakness in the manufacturing sector and thereby, of course, damaging chemicals and polymer markets. The country's garment exports fell by 0.2 percent in the first seven months of...

China's Labour Complications

Source: Wang Feng, director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy in Beijing, from an article published in the China Economic Quarterly.   By John Richardson ONE of the explanations for China's disappointing petrochemicals demand growth during 2012 is...

PE Middle East Offers Keep Falling

By John Richardson POLYOLEFIN markets are not going to bottom out until August-September at the earliest, according to several producers and traders who the blog spoke to yesterday. And even if prices do eventually stop declining, confidence has all but...

Job-hopping Causes Post-New Year Demand Dip

Chinese workers are on the hop....  Source of picture: advanced-fibre.com   By John Richardson CHINA'S polyolefin demand in the few days of proper trading that have taken place since the Lunar New Year has been described as "horrendous" and "grim"...

Polyolefin numbers - Part 2

By Malini Hariharan Its not just China and India that have posted healthy demand numbers for last year. Vietnam maintained double-digit growth in polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) last year, driven mainly by the local food packaging sector, reports ICIS...

The LPG Cracking Myth Debunked

We are deeply ashamed of ourselves....     By John Richardson AT the risk of boring you completely senseless let us once again return to the subject of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and its likely usefulness as a cracker feedstock over...

Asian propylene pricing heading for "a crash"

By John Richardson PROPYLENE pricing is heading for "a crash" in Asia as a result of spot supply increasing by around 20,000 tonne/month, a senior industry source has told the blog. Shell Chemicals will have a surplus 440,000 tonne/year of...