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Asian Chemical Connections

Oil Prices, Wall Street And Economic Chaos

By John Richardson Crude oil and commodities markets have lost touch with the fundamental realities. This didn’t just happen yesterday, but began a decade ago. That’s the argument the blog put forward in the latest chapter of our new free eBook, ‘Boom, Gloom and the New Normal – how the Western BabyBoomers are changing chemical […]

The View From Ground Level Is Different

By John Richardson The macroeconomic headwinds are building, making it hard for some of those at the ground level in Asian polyolefin markets to foresee anything but fragile and tough trading conditions. This is in marked contrast to the fairly optimistic outlook presented by some of the big, well-integrated and differentiated chemicals and polymer companies […]

Polyolefin End-users Assume The Risk

By John Richardson POLYOLEFIN end-users in China and Southeast Asia began to re-stock in significant numbers last week on anticipation that supply is going to remain tight for the next few weeks at least, the blog has been told. “There was a feeling among the converters that because of scheduled maintenance work in August and […]

The US Debt Crisis And Asian Chemicals

By John Richardson THE consequence of either a failure by the US to raise the debt ceiling and/or a downgrading of the country’s Triple A debt rating would have obviously have serious consequences for the Asian and global chemicals industries. Just how serious nobody really knows as we are in uncharted waters. At the very […]

Dow To Sell PP to Braskem

DOW Chemical is to sell its polypropylene (PP) business to Brazil’s Braskem for $340m, according to our colleagues at ICIS news. The blog is digging around for the implications for Dow in Asia. For the time being, however, here are some initial thoughts…. Included in the sales are two plants in the US and two […]

India Polymers Shine But Questions Persist

By Malini Hariharan Optimism has returned to the Indian polymer market fuelled by a sharp recovery in prices and buying sentiment over the last few weeks across Asia. The talk these days is mainly about tightness in availability of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) and when producers will announce the next price hike. Supply is […]

Cosy Platitudes Are Not Enough

By John Richardson DO you trust your government to always get it right? The answer in the case of the West is “of course not”, but in China’s case the publicly-expressed assumption still holds that the economy is being effectively managed. CEOs of chemicals and polymer companies might find it politically challenging to openly say […]

China Chemical Imports Fall On Affordability

By John Richardson China’s petrochemical imports continued to decline in June on tight credit conditions and price rises that deterred consumers, according to our colleagues at ICIS news. Linear-low density polyethylene (LLDPE) imports fell by 18% month-on-month and 3% year-on-year, for example. High-density PE (HDPE) shipments slipped by 4% month-on-month and 8% year-on-year. Benzene shipments halved […]

The Edginess, The Nervousness Continues

By John Richardson THE edgy and nervous nature of the recovery in Asian polyolefin markets became even more apparent from discussions the blog held with traders and producers during a visit to Singapore last week. Such was the uncertainty that there were mid-week reports of falls in pricing. By Friday, though, one producer told us […]

Polyolefins At A Tipping Point

By John Richardson EUROPEAN polyolefin markets are at one of those fascinating tipping points following the recent price recovery. Ethylene spot prices rebounded late last week with July sales much better than those in June, wrote Nel Weddle, European ICIS pricing olefins editor, in this report. Propylene, however, remained under pressure because of a long market. […]

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