China's auto industry has seen extraordinary growth since the downturn began in the West in Q4 2008. The government encouraged lending, and also cut taxes on auto sales. As a result, sales jumped 49% in 2009, from 6.9m to 10.3m....
History doesn't repeat, but it sometimes rhymes. That was the insight of the famed American writer, Mark Twain. 2 weeks ago, this led the blog to highlight the similarities between the geo-political concerns then developing in Egypt, and the Israel/Iran...
Benzene markets have become increasingly volatile over the past few years. This is because there are now no major sources available of on-purpose supply, to balance demand. My speech at our Aromatics Conference in Berlin last week highlighted the...
Q3 showed no real improvement in European cracker operating rates (OR%). As the chart shows, based on APPE data, these remained at 82% for the Q1 - Q3 period. Of course, this is much better than the 76% OR% seen...
As promised, the 3rd of the blog's series on the changes underway in the pricing of the major 'building block' chemicals, looks at benzene. The chart above shows its 'spread' versus naphtha, the key dynamic from a price and margin...
Shell and Saudi Aramco have now confirmed plans to spend $7bn to build what they term ‘the first new refinery in the U.S. in more than 30 years’. They will achieve this by adding 325,000 barrels per day (b/d) to...
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