By John Richardson “IF we build polymer capacity in India the demand will come,” a very senior industry executive told the blog last year. He amplified this statement by explaining that greater availability of plastics would always stimulate strong demand growth for low-end packaging materials etc in emerging markets in general, as the poor became […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Siam Cement eyes big Indonesian buy
By Malini Hariharan Confirmation has come in from the Siam Cement Group (SCG) that it is in the race to acquire stakes in two Indonesian companies – Chandra Asri and Sulfindo Adiusaha. “We are interested in both firms in Indonesia as petrochemicals are SCG’s core business. But we cannot disclose anything at the moment because […]
September Will Be A Cruel Month
By John Richardson SEPTEMBER is going to be a cruel month when the West returns from the summer holiday period and the extent of damage to chemicals and polymer demand becomes more apparent. In Asia, temporary supply constraints in polyolefins, paraxylene (PX) and styrene monomer (SM) have disguised the damage. These constraints will at some point ease, leading […]
The New Normal World In 2021
By John Richardson ALL of us would love to be able to see into the future. Chapter 4 of our new eBook, ‘Boom, Gloom and the New Normal’, does just this. It offers 10 predictions about how the world will look in 2021, which are : 1. Young and old will be focused much more […]
Formosa up but not out of the woods yet
By Malini Hariharan Operations at the Formosa group of companies in Mailiao, Taiwan, are slowly resuming but the group faces an uphill task in regaining public and government confidence in its ability to run plants safely. There have been seven accidents in the last twelve months with two fires at the Mailiao complex in July. […]
Chandra Asri stake up for sale?
By Malini Hariharan Indonesia’s sole cracker operator Chandra Asri faces yet another ownership change with Singapore’s Temasek Holding reported to be looking at divesting its stake in the company. The news report in the Wall Street Journal said several companies from Thailand, South Korea and Japan have shown interest in Temasek’s stake, including Thailand’s PTT […]
Towards a New Normal, not a new Supercycle
GDP growth figures in Europe and the USA have shown virtually no growth in Q2, whilst China is clearly also slowing fast. It is hard to believe that even today, some analysts are still arguing that a new Supercycle is now underway. The blog remains convinced that we are in transition to a New Normal, […]
Wal-Mart sends a message
by Paul Hodges The blog is a great believer in the predictive power of the retail sector. Wal-Mart and Tesco were the first to spot the downturn in the summer of 2007, a year before it became obvious to everyone else. Now Wal-Mart’s problems are providing some important messages about how companies need to adjust […]
China’s bank lending nears its Minsky Moment
by Paul Hodges China’s credit bubble is one of the largest the world has ever seen. This is true not only of its total size, but also in relation to GDP. The history of credit bubbles is very clear about what happens next. Anyone who has followed the US subprime lending disaster will know the […]
China And Bouncing Dead Cats
By John Richardson Fifty per cent of the blog (John Richardson) is on leave for the next two weeks. Next week Paul Hodges will be posting on Asian Chemical Connections. Paul runs the ICIS Chemicals & Economy blog.Then from the week starting 22 August my fellow ACC blogger, Malini Hariharan, returns from her leave and […]
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