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Russia’s chemical output begins to improve

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By Paul Hodges on 01-Jul-2010

Russia Jul10.pngIn May last year, the blog was hopeful that the major decline in Russian chemical production might start to reverse. And recent ACC regional production figures have indeed shown a welcome improvement in Central and Eastern European output, which was badly hit by the 2008-9 collapse.

Once again, the blog is grateful to Sergei Blagov of ICIS news for the data in the above chart, and further insight into some key areas:

• Polymers (red line) has been the best performer, as domestic demand has risen along with the economy. Growth was up 5% overall last year.
• In January-May this year, production improved further. Polyethylene was up 20% versus 2009, whilst polypropylene was up 12%, PVC was up 18% and polystyrene up 16%
• Fertiliser production (blue), however, fell further to 13.4 million tonnes in 2009. It was down 12% after a 6% decline in 2008.
• Fibre output (green) was also down 18%, after a 24% fall in 2008.