Mumbai at night Source of picture: travelygan.wordpress.com By John Richardson in Mumbai POLYOLEFINS will not see a margin collapse this year due to persistently strong demand growth and continued problems with new-capacity start-ups, said numerous industry sources on the sidelines of the Asia Petrochemical Industry Conference (APIC) in Mumbai. The belief seems […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Saudi Gas Shortage Will Last A Long Time
Goodbye to all of that Source of picture: www.gas2.org By John Richardson in Mumbai for the Asia Petrochemical Industry Conference (APIC) EXISTING Saudi Arabian crackers will continue to run at less than 100% until the Kingdom’s oil production returns to 10m bbl/day – and that’s not going happen for some considerable time, […]
Qatar eyes cracker capacity hike and propane cracking
By Malini Hariharan Ras Laffan Olefins Co (RLOC) is studying an expansion of its new cracker by using propane as a feedstock. At a recent news conference, Mohammed Yousef Al Mulla, general manager of Qatofin, the Qatar Petroleum-Total joint venture downstream of the 1.3m tonnes/year cracker, said that while the cracker was currently running at […]
All mixed up in the West
By Malini Hariharan The blog has been writing about the softening in olefin and polyolefin prices in the US. But the European market presents an interesting contrast offering arbitrage opportunities for those willing to take the risk. Operating rate reductions have been reported at crackers in Priolo, Italy; Tarragona, Spain; Carling, France; Cologne, Germany; and […]
US-Asia PP Arbirtrage Remains Uncertain
By John Richardson THE jury is out over whether the recent decline in US propylene prices will re-open arbitrage to Asia for polypropylene (PP). Arbitrage for ethylene has remained strong with Dow Chemical disclosing that 20% of its US production went to Asia during Q1 US propylene contracts for May settled at a reduction of […]
China Muddle And Confusion Continues
By John Richardson The muddle and confusion that has characterises forecasts for Chinese chemicals demand continues – and with all this persistent uncertainty comes a great deal of nervousness about volumes in the second half of 2010. So far so good for this year, despite a 43% drop in bank lending during Q1 2010 compared […]
China Chems Liquidity Boost To Continue?
Lots more empty ones like these? Source of picture: http://www.chrismartenson.com By John Richardson THE dramatic increase in China’s money supply during 2009 – the result of an estimated 10 trillion Yuan increase in lending over the previous year – might continue to support plastics and chemicals demand growth during the rest 2010, an industry source suggested […]
UK General Election: Charisma Bypass
David Cameron Source picture: right up north By John Richardson Nothing to do with chemicals, but indulge me – this is a once-in-five-years event. I really miss, in some ways, the pantomime politics of the 1980s and early 1990s when you had clear enemies (in my case Thatcher, as she devastated large swathes […]
Greek Bonds And Chemicals
Gillian Tett: Worth Listening To Source of picture: afponline.org By John Richardson The excellent journalist Gillian Tett, whose book on the financial crisis – Fool’s Gold is well worth a read – again hits the nail on the head in this piece in today’s Financial Times. She says that if the whole of […]
Singapore Value-add Chem Announcements Expected Soon
Ben van Beurden of Shell Chemicals Source of picture: Shell.com By John Richardson SINGAPORE looks set to soon make some further announcements on high-value investments downstream of the new Shell Eastern Petrochemical Co (SEPC) cracker. The complex – which comprises an 800,000 tonne/year mixed-feed cracker and a 750,000 tonne/year OMEGA process monoethylene glycol […]
Jump to page: