Home Author: John Richardson

Asian Chemical Connections

A fight to the finish

By Malini Hariharan (Malini is now joint blogger for Asian Chemical Connections) The Indian government has announced 17 November as the date for a public hearing to discuss the provisional anti dumping duties that it had imposed in June on imports of polypropylene (PP) from Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Oman. The hearing will give a […]

Some Very Crude Perceptions

Source of picture: www.prisonplanet.com     Misleading perceptions can be very dangerous – especially when they apply to the crude-oil futures markets. “The price has more than doubled this year partly because of the belief that the recovery in Chinese oil-import demand is all about booming local consumption” said a source on the sidelines of […]

Time to look inward

By Malini Hariharan (Malini is now joint blogger for Asian Chemical Connections) It pays to have a domestic focus and Reliance Industries has shown this again in its results for the first half of fiscal 2009-10. Its petrochemicals division delivered Rs43bn in earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT), a 23.8% growth over the same period […]

Caution is the name of the game

By Malini Hariharan (Malini is now joint blogger for Asian Chemical Connections) Japanese chemical majors have raised their sales and profit forecasts for the second half of the fiscal year ending 31 March 2010, but the revisions are marginal and companies are still holding a conservative outlook. Earnings in the first half of this fiscal […]

More Muddle And Confusion

By John Richardson Manufacturers yesterday reported rising output and improved employment prospects in the US, Europe and Asia. China’s Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), involving a survey of more than 700 manufacturers, increased for the eighth straight month in a row – and is now back to where it was in May 2008. This is exactly […]

To Cut Rates Or Not To Cut…

A Famous Ditherer Source of picture: sarafinewordpress.com   Chasing higher oil prices and/or a response to the now long-running recovery in Chinese demand that’s become sustainable? Not wanting to sound too much like the start of a famous Shakespeare soliloquy, these are the questions that should be wracking everyone’s brains as they try to figure […]

More evidence of China’s export rebound

Source of picture: Businesweek   More evidence is emerging of the big rebound in Chinese exports resulting from government subsidies, including a Yuan now pegged to the dollar, soft and plentiful bank loans and export-tax rebates. More than 9,000 quality control inspections of goods set for overseas shipment took place in Q3 this year – […]

A fresh vote of confidence for the DCE

By Malini Hariharan (Malini is now joint blogger for Asian Chemical Connections) It helps to have a commodity bull on your side and that’s just what the Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) has succeeded in doing. Jim Rogers, the noted investment guru, will be a senior advisor to the exchange. Jim Rogers is, as always, positive […]

China and M-E Delays To Offer More Market Support

  As this updated table from my colleagues at CBI in China illustrates, cracker-complex delays in China have the potential to further stagger the arrival of new volumes into the market. Chinanewcapacitytable.doc This follows the widespread problems in starting up new capacity in the Middle East. The 800,000 tonne/year Fujian Petrochemical/ExxonMobil/Saudi Aramco cracker is on-stream, […]

China Sept chemical import-surge data

More of the cheap stuff? Source of picture: www.thelocal.de   Some of the China import data for September is now available – showing record-high imports of monoethylene glycol (MEG), ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA), polyacetal, polycarbonate (PC). “I have given up trying to figure this out. There is not sufficient accurate information anywhere to read a […]

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