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• Dow forced to halt work at Chakan

  In yet another blow to Dow Chemical's plans for India the company has had to halt work on its new R&D centre at Chakan , near Pune, following instructions from the Maharashtra chief minister. The government's directive was aimed at appeasing... Posted Oct 01 2008, 08:15 AM by India Chemicals Blog Filed under: India, R&D, Dow Chemical, Companies, Government Policy, Chakan

• Crikey, did I eat that much?

  The old saying "there's no such thing as a free lunch" has at last been proved true with the virtual collapse of the global financial system - and with it, quite possibly, the world's economy. But for the last decade or more, the chemicals... Posted Sep 25 2008, 03:14 PM by Asian Chemical Connections Filed under: US, China, India, American Chemistry Council, Business, Thailand, Singapore, Australia, PIMCO, financial meltdown, financial rescue package, Mohamed El-Erian

• Syngenta unveils tropical sugar beet in India

  Syngenta has unveiled a new tropical sugar beet that produces around as much sugar as cane, the company says. The crop matures in five months and uses less water than cane. This could be useful for ethanol production in the tropics. Read More... Posted Sep 25 2008, 10:02 AM by The Big Biofuels Blog Filed under: Water, Agriculture, Science, India, Syngenta, Sugar, tropical, beet

• The global stock market decline

  Alan Greenspan's comments ( below ), led the blog to investigate how the world's major stock markets had moved since their recent peaks. All, as shown in the chart, are now in bear markets. Stock markets often forecast economic developments 6... Posted Sep 18 2008, 02:02 PM by Chemicals & The Economy Filed under: USA, China, UK, India, Brazil, Economic growth, Oil markets, Currencies, Japan, Financial Events, M & A, Leverage, global downturn, Russia, Alan Greenspan

• The world is round after all

  I asked my boss two years ago what were his favourite business books. His list included The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century by Thomas Friedman. Of course I rushed out and bought the book. It has sold by the truck load and was quoted... Posted Sep 16 2008, 02:47 AM by Asian Chemical Connections Filed under: US, Economics, China, Environment, technology, Europe, India, Sabic, Business, Oil & Gas, climate change, sustainability, global warming, Peak Oil, Thomas Friedman, Flat and Crowded, Hot, globalisation

• Auto sales fall around the world

  August was a bad month for US auto sales. GM said sales were down 20%, Toyota were down 9%, Ford down 26% and Chrysler fell 35%. They even lost 4th place in US ranking, as Honda's sales fell 'only' 7%. This set the blog wondering about relative... Posted Sep 14 2008, 06:03 AM by Chemicals & The Economy Filed under: China, Europe, India, Economic growth, Toyota, Chrysler, GM, Ford

• A drowning man will clutch onto anything

  A drowning man will grab hold of any floating debris - even a plastic bag made from standard-grade Chinese polyethylene (PE). Hence, last Friday a statement by Wang Tianpu led to a few days of excited speculation about the cancellation of several Chinese... Posted Sep 12 2008, 10:11 AM by Asian Chemical Connections Filed under: Economics, China, Environment, Indonesia, India, Middle East, Olefins, Polyolefins, Projects, Business, Oil & Gas, Markets, Philippines, Naphtha & other feedstocks, sustainability, Deutsche Bank, Company Strategy, Innnovation, Peak Oil, coal gasification, Sumitomo Chemical, gas pricing, Saudi Aramco, coal-o-chemicals, PetroRabigh

• What's it like to be a millionaire?

  ....You might have to be to be able to afford this lot in a few years time (at least in some inflation-battered and collapsed local currency) Thanks to Mark Berggren of MMSA for pointing out this wonderful quote: "Foreign aid might be defined as... Posted Sep 08 2008, 10:40 AM by Asian Chemical Connections Filed under: Economics, Indonesia, India, Business, Oil & Gas, Philippines, Asian Development Bank, World Bank, Company Strategy, Peak Oil, food poverty, MMSA

• Indian Sugar cane to ethanol: a study

  Thanks to Draka for this information on the state of ethanol production in India from Current Science . As Draka says, in a comment below, sugar cane takes a lot of water to grow. Read More... Posted Sep 04 2008, 01:09 PM by The Big Biofuels Blog Filed under: ethanol, Agriculture, India, Sugar, cane

• India petchem hubs - no chance!

  The long-contemplated attempt to build integrated petchem hubs in India, complete with shared utilities and strong investment incentives - aka China and Singapore - now seems even more of a hopeless pipe dream. This follows the decision by Tata Motors... Posted Sep 03 2008, 07:09 AM by Asian Chemical Connections Filed under: Economics, China, India, Reliance Industries, West Bengal, Business, integration benefits, yellow dahl, vested interests, Tata Motors, site efficiencies

• How India could join the biofuel explosion

  There's an interesting article about how India's policies are stopping India create biofuel on the Hindu business line . They're subsidising the wrong thing, apparently. I think. Read More... Posted Sep 01 2008, 02:46 PM by The Big Biofuels Blog Filed under: ethanol, Policy, biofuels, politics, India, Sugar

• I've got ten of these

  A report by the Hay Group on world pay, surprise surprise, concludes that the Middle East tops the world in terms of disposable income because of the region's economic boom and the absence of income tax. This has serious implications for the chemicals... Posted Aug 20 2008, 03:08 PM by Asian Chemical Connections Filed under: Indonesia, India, BASF, Dow Chemical, Fischer Tropsch, The Hay Group, renumeration

• Mixed messages as India drops state funding for biodiesel

  According to a report in India's Economic Times, on 4 August, the Indian Government has pulled out of a nationwide biodiesel plan , because ministers were worried that large corporations would buy large areas of the country for biofuel production... Posted Aug 19 2008, 11:00 AM by The Big Biofuels Blog Filed under: Policy, biofuel, Biodiesel, India

• Why the Doha failure is bad

  The failure, and quite possibly the death, of the Doha round of trade negotiations earlier this week could create a very confusing and erratic regulatory landscape for the chemicals industry. This excellent entry in the New Scientist environment blog... Posted Aug 02 2008, 07:20 AM by Asian Chemical Connections Filed under: US, Economics, China, Environment, Europe, India, Business, climate change, Company Strategy, carbon tax, free-trade talks

• It's a whole new ball game

  First of all, apologies to readers for my complete neglect of this blog over the last six weeks. I can only plead overwork and being too stunned by the collapse of the global economy to think about the blogosphere. I promise regular posts from now on... Posted Jul 21 2008, 09:37 AM by Asian Chemical Connections Filed under: Economics, India, Admin, aromatics, Olefins, Oil & Gas, Markets