The industry we work either for or with is about as popular as George Bush Junior at I was about to say a wedding party in the Gaza Strip; but actually probably about as popular as George Bush at just about any wedding party in the world, even in some parts of Texas these days. […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Are We On A Different Planet?
“Hello, my name is John Richardson. I had an accident, and I woke up in 1973. Am I mad, in a coma, or back in time? Whatever’s happened, it’s like I’ve landed on a different planet.” Before you think I’ve been at the methanol again, please follow this link to the fantastic BBC TV series, […]
No more pessimism for a couple of weeks
You maybe relieved, on the day the Chinese government introduces measures to cool stock markets resulting in sharp fall in the Shanghai Exchange, that I am going on leave for a couple of weeks. Perhaps I’ll feel the sun on my back (unlikely as I’ll be visiting Scotland), come back with renewed optimism and not […]
Another Asian Financial Crisis, this time triggered by China?
After yesterday’s optimism, yet more pessimism. I remember 1997. Don’t underestimate the dange of contagion if China’s stock market bubble does burst – as the likes of Alan Greenspan are predicting
Is this the death of cycles?
Quite possibly, yes, despite my instinctiive pessimism. Perhaps emerging markets such as China and India have reached such a critical mass that no matter how much capacity is brought on stream, it will be easily absorbed. Or maybe some disaster lies just around the corner. Who cares if you’ve made your money in the most […]
Watch out for the Black Swans and dump the consultants
The former trader turned professor, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, in his new book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable warns against the danger of forecasting. Forecasting is, obviously, always based on what he know and not what we don’t know. A Black Swan, by the way, is an earth-shattering event we didn’t predict […]
Bad news for polyvinyl chloride?
And also a whole host of other chemicals if this article on the excellent All Roads Lead to China blog is correct and incentives that have encouraged the real estate boom are removed. This serves of the dangers of overheating. What goes up must come down and, in this case, the real sector has a […]
Are coal-to-chemicals projects in China a load of nonsense?
Maybe, if the mystery blogger at the excellent http://www.theoildrum.com/ site knows what he is talking about. I’ve pasted in his arguments below. You need to register at this site, which takes only a few minutes, if you want to get into the wider debate about how energy issues will have a critical bearing on all […]
Two optimistic views of the future
The eternal optimists at Nova Chemicals presented a very bullish view of olefins and polyolefins markets at their recent results meeting.Aaron Yap, trader with Integra, was also equally bullish at the ICIS Asian Polymers Conference in Shanghai last week – see Download file In short, Aaron believed that demand growth would hold up downstream while […]
A new era of globalisation?
I was chatting to my good friend and contact Paul Hodges of International eChem yesterday.He believes we’ve entered globalisation part II, where the impact of higher raw material prices will trigger harmful inflation. As Ben Bernanke has pointed out, oil prices are 40% higher than would otherwise have been the case without the recent boom […]
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