By John Richardson and Malini Hariharan in Shanghai A TWO-TIER China polyolefin market had developed in China over the last couple of years – but the $64,000 question right now is: At which of these two levels will most business be settled during December? The ever-volatile Dalian Commodity Exchange determines the day-by-day sentiment, while overseas […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Total waits for Qatar to decide
By Malini Hariharan Qatar Petroleum seems to be in no rush to sign up a foreign partner for its next cracker project. With doubts about ExxonMobil’s participation, the field has narrowed to Total Petrochemicals and Shell. Total’s proposal for a mixed-feed cracker ‘was still in the very early stages,’ said Graeme Burnett, the company’s senior […]
Saudi pressure fails to work
By Malini Hariharan The polypropylene (PP) anti-dumping investigation that Indian producers had initiated against exporters from Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Oman has finally drawn to a close. The Finance Ministry confirmed anti-dumping duties (ADD) late yesterday, just a day before a recommendation made by the Commerce Ministry in August was due to expire. Pic source: […]
Chemicals And Polymer Prices Behave As We Predicted
By John Richardson AS the blog had anticipated would happen, there were sharp retreats in some chemicals and polymers pricing late last week on the steep declines in equity and crude prices. Polyethylene (PE) fell by $70-130/tonne, according to our colleagues at ICIS pricing, as the Dalian Commodity Exchange once again demonstrated that it has become […]
Oversupply In Petchems Still On The Way
Perhaps not just yet…. By John Richardson COULD it be that some chemicals industry players and observers, in the great galloping rush to join the supercycle stampede, have got ahead of themselves in predicting that we are already through the bottom of the margins trough? This distinct possibility was raised by Joe Duffy, consultant with […]
Petchem Pricing Faces Big Declines
By John Richardson THE wheels have started to come off the wagon – as we have been warning about over the past week or so – as a result of a broad sell-off in equities and commodities. Inflation concerns in China and elsewhere, the result of all the hot money flowing into emerging markets due to QE2, […]
Reliance Reveals Major Investment Plans
By Malini Hariharan India’s Reliance Industries is evaluating investments in a number of chemicals including olefins and derivatives, acetyls, elastomers and fibre intermediates to increase its petrochemicals production from crude, a senior company executive has told the blog. “We would like to maximise petrochemical production from our refineries, swing product slate from fuel […]
US Petrochemicals A World Beater
Shell’s refinery and petchems complex in Deer Park, Texas Source of picture http://www.msnbc.msn.com/ By John Richardson THE excellent third-quarter financial results of the likes of Dow Chemical and LyondellBasell further confirm the extraordinary turnaround in the cost positions of those with a big proportion of their global polyolefins production based in the US. Some […]
Iran Remains Optimistic On Exports
Dubai crucial for Iran By Malini Hariharan The blog recently had an opportunity to talk to a few Iranian companies and was impressed by their sanguine approach to the challenges posed by the new round of sanctions. This too shall pass was the prevailing philosophy. “We have a long experience [in dealing with sanctions]; […]
Disneyland Economics And Planning For 2011
Please stop taking the Mickey.. Source of picture: China Daily By John Richardson ECONOMIC bubbles have been given their name for a good reason: They behave exactly the same as the soap bubbles that were prevalent at Hong Kong’s Disneyland, where I paid with my three-year-old son yesterday. So when the momentum of rising […]
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