By Malini Hariharan Is this the right time to buy petrochemical stocks? Asian equity analysts are having a tough time answering this question being posed by portfolio managers across the region. They are seeing a ‘mini downcycle’ emerging with a weaker second half relative to H1 2010 and potentially a weak H1 2011, explained one […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Financial Sector Fear Looms Large
By John Richardson WE will explore the following issues in a lot more detail over the coming days, assuming that the crude and financial market turmoil continues. But for now here follows the interpretation of the crisis from a source with a major polyethylene (PE) producer. The themes are consistent with what we have been picking up […]
Chemicals Face More Financial Sector Damage
Greed definitely not good for chemicals…. Source of picture: reelmovienews.com By John Richardson THE chemicals industry is once again confronting the risk of being badly damaged by the ever-more interconnected oil, other hard commodity, currency and equity markets. As fellow blogger Paul Hodges told us last November: “Demand visibility – even without as yet […]
Ouch! China High Inventories At Worst Possible Time
Is The China Party Over? Hope you’ve got plenty of aspirin.. Source: The Daily Telegraph By John Richardson Apologies to our readers for a fairly quiet week on the blog this week – my fellow blogger Malini and I have been immersed in a week of training courses for our rapidly-growing training business, ICIS […]
Asia Resurgent On Refinery Integration
Source of picture: omniglobal.com By John Richardson A FASCINATING theme to emerge from last week’s Asia Petrochemical Industry Conference (APIC) in Mumbai was a growing belief in refinery integration in Asia as a means of being able to compete with the Middle East. Reliance Industries is planning a giant cracker complex based largely, […]
Bursting China’s real estate bubble…
By Malini Hariharan …is not going to be easy and the Chinese government’s attempts to control sky rocketing prices will not work unless there is a change in the local culture, a chemical industry executive confidently predicted at last week’s Apic conference in Mumbai. I thought the executive was referring to the Chinese love for […]
Total Petrochemicals Makes Big MTO Progress
A Chinese coalminer Source: www.guardian.co.uk Over the next week, as well as keeping track of more immediat events, we will be reviewing and analysing what was said in and around last week’s Asia Petrochemical Industry Conference (APIC) in Mumbai. One of the most-interesting stories to emerge was a clear message from close to Total […]
APIC Confidence A Dangerous Thing?
Mumbai at night Source of picture: travelygan.wordpress.com By John Richardson in Mumbai POLYOLEFINS will not see a margin collapse this year due to persistently strong demand growth and continued problems with new-capacity start-ups, said numerous industry sources on the sidelines of the Asia Petrochemical Industry Conference (APIC) in Mumbai. The belief seems […]
Saudi Gas Shortage Will Last A Long Time
Goodbye to all of that Source of picture: www.gas2.org By John Richardson in Mumbai for the Asia Petrochemical Industry Conference (APIC) EXISTING Saudi Arabian crackers will continue to run at less than 100% until the Kingdom’s oil production returns to 10m bbl/day – and that’s not going happen for some considerable time, […]
US-Asia PP Arbirtrage Remains Uncertain
By John Richardson THE jury is out over whether the recent decline in US propylene prices will re-open arbitrage to Asia for polypropylene (PP). Arbitrage for ethylene has remained strong with Dow Chemical disclosing that 20% of its US production went to Asia during Q1 US propylene contracts for May settled at a reduction of […]
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