Source of picture: www.walletpop.com By John Richardson In his own words Paul Hodges of International e-Chem – and also a fellow blogger – puts in a nutshell some of the dangers confronting the chemicals industry as we approach the New Year, with a few interspersed further thoughts from this blog: “If crude […]
Asian Chemical Connections
US Dollar Carry Trade Threat To Chemicals
Stay cool and don’t panic! Source of picture: www.wired.com By John Richardson THE growth of the carry trade US dollars – leading to a sharp depreciation of the greenback and possibly of many other unintended consequences – represents a major threat to the chemicals industry in 2010. Any corporate planner with her or […]
Naphtha Highest Level For More Than A Year
Shelf-space to be in short supply again? Source of picture: www.zrdata.com ASIAN naphtha prices hit their highest level for more than a year yesterday – reaching $701/tonne CFR Japan for second-half December open-spec material on “improved market conditions”. Earlier this week we picked up more reports of bleak demand in styrenics and fibre intermediates that […]
More Questionable Chinese Data Clouds The Picture
It seems as if Lex of the Financial Times is finally catching up with this blog by questioning the validity of some of the official data coming out of China. We take this as a compliment. In today’s column it talks about how the total for first-half Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth numbers for China’s 31 provinces […]
Qatar-Shell Sing Deal Feedstock, Investment Options
Singapore’s Jurong Island Source of picture: www.pcs.com Qatar Petroleum International (QPI) sees Singapore as a good base for expanding in to the Far East, said CEO Nasser Al-Jaidah yesterday after the announcement of the new partnership with Shell. QPI and Shell signed a series of agreements on Wednesday to jointly own 50% of Petrochemical Corporation of […]
Qatar Petroleum buys into Singapore petchems
Just picked up on the interesting news (not sure how big a deal this is) after attending one of those long interminably-long internal planning meetings. But on this occasion we at least were discussing something useful – not just the new colour for the carpet in reception. So why has Qatar Petroluem bought into Petrochemical […]
What the flipping heck is going on?….
…….and no trite Public Relations-speak answers, please!!! This is not me, by the way, (my computer is an older model) but the expression about sums it up www.scienceblogs.com No matter where you seem to turn these days, whether it’s to the refinery industry or to any chemicals production chain, the story is more or […]
For Hands That Don’t Want To Do Dishes
Buy now, pay later…. Source: www.examiner.com Note: There is a special prize for the first blog reader who can explain the above headline. In the 2001 recession, US consumer spending slowed but did not fall, and picked up again very quickly. In the early 1990s, it dipped a bit but returned to pre-recession […]
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 […]
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