By John Richardson Polyolefin shipments have been held up in ports by lack of awareness among customs officers at some ports in Southeast Asia over how to implement new free-trade deals, an industry source told us. It seems highly likely that the same applies to other chemicals and polymer cargoes. The Association of Southeast Asian […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Douple-dip Appears To Have Begun
By John Richardson The start of the next dip in what this blog has long thought would be a double-dip economic crisis looks as if it could have begun. If not now, it’s going to happen at some point because of major global imbalances. What’s worrying right now is the combination of: *Potentially weaker demand […]
The Dangers Of A Three-Year-Old’s Attention Span
“Hello everybody – welcome to the island of Sodor. Time to flip your positions’ Source of picture: www.dragoart.com By John Richardson MY three-year-old son has, quite rightly, an incredibly short attention span. A child of that age should be overwhelmed with the excitement of lots of wonderful experiences and possibilities. But I would argue that […]
Refinery Profit Squeeze Threat To Petchems
“Any Old Iron?” Source of picture: http://www.investorfsbo.com/refinery.html By John Richardson A LONG-TERM shift in refinery economics is posing a major threat to petrochemical margins – along with the delayed supply crisis that’s likely to hit the industry at some point over the next year. “Refiners, when the global economy was booming and particularly after […]
China PVC Capacity Binge Clobbers Northeast Asia
By John Richardson CHINA’S capacity expansions in industries including steel, aluminium and petrochemicals continue to astound. Take polyvinyl chloride (PVC) for example., where, according to a new report by ChemSystems, “capacity (in China) has expanded from 5m tonne/year in 2003 to over 15m tonne/year in 2009, almost 90 percent of total global capacity expansion over […]
Beware The Motives of Optimists
By John Richardson IT is always useful to make a note of both what economists are saying and where they are coming from. To give you an example, I was at a conference last year when I heard a ridiculously rosy outlook for both emerging and developed economies, delivered by an economist working for a […]
China Latest Growth, Inflation Raise Rate Rise Fears
By John Richardson CHINA’S soaring fourth-quarter GDP (gross domestic product) growth – and the release of the latest inflation statistic – has heightened fears among economists that interest-rate rises will be necessary, risking collapse in house prices if it’s not managed skilfully. Inflation rose to 1.9% in December last year from 0.6% in November, according to […]
China Latest Credit Tightening Blow To Chemicals
By John Richardson CHINA’S decision to temporarily halt lending by some banks – which was announced yesterday – as it attempts to further cool the economy will likely have a significant effect on chemicals demand and pricing. This follows last week’s decision to raise bank reserve requirements and two increases in the inter-bank lending rate […]
“Trust in me, go to sleep,” – the objective of China’s Central Bank
Source of picture: www.forums.comicbookresources.com By John Richardson I loved the analogy in yesterday’s Lex column in the Financial Times, comparing the objectives of any central bank to those of Kaa, the python in Jungle Book (nice excuse for a picture to brighten up the blog). The serious point is that […]
India still shining
The figures may not be as impressive as China but India too has been churning out some good growth numbers. The Index of Industrial Production was up 11.7% in November, the fastest pace of growth in more than two yeas. While growth was broad-based the consumer durables sector was a major contribution as production expanded […]
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