By John Richardson THERE has been a strong recovery in China’s synthetic fibres value chain since May of this year, according to Becky Zhang, our excellent ICIS pricing Asian fibre intermediates and synthetic fibres editor, who keeps her finger firmly on the pulse of the market. Becky attributes the rebound to: Reports of stronger textile […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Listen To The Iconoclasts
By John Richardson Does your company employ an independent economist who forms her or his own view of where China is heading, or does it instead just accept the conventional wisdom dished up by the big institutions, such as the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)? A management consultant we spoke […]
China Faces Poor Peak Manufacturing Season
By John Richardson DEMAND for chemicals and plastics in Asia should be seasonally robust at this stage of the year, when Chinese companies typically prepare for the peak manufacturing season, but this isn’t happening in 2013, warned Paul Satchell, chemicals analyst with Cannacord Genuity. “Goods are manufactured during August and September [the peak season], for […]
Stock-building Drives China PE Recovery
By John Richardson APPARENT polyethylene (PE) demand in China rose by 10% in January-May of this year compared with the same period in 2011, according to the above chart from Global Trade Information Services (GTIS), which was compiled by fellow blogger Paul Hodges. We worry that this recovery is largely the result of inventory building […]
The Complexities Of Benzene
By John Richardson SOMETIMES petrochemicals markets defy reality, on the occasions when pricing moves out-of-synchronicity with the underlying nature of demand. This is the case with benzene today (see the above pricing chart) as my ICIS colleague Truong Mellor describes, in this excellent Insight article. He says that: *European Benzene pricing has been bullish, as […]
Demographics And Shale Gas
By John Richardson GLOBAL shale resources are large enough to cover more than a decade of oil consumption, writes the FT in this article, quoting the US Department of Energy. And as my colleague Nigel Davis writes in this, as usual, excellent Insight article, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) has upwardly revised its estimate of worldwide recoverable […]
China PE Recovery Lacks Firm Foundation
By John Richardson DESPITE a slight pick-up in China’s polyethylene (PE) prices over the last two weeks (see above chart), producers and traders remain gloomy about the immediate outlook. “What has driven prices up is that new supply hasn’t hit the June market in volumes that people expected,” said a source with a global producer. […]
Turkish Escape Valve Under Threat
By John Richardson TURKEY has long been a useful barometer of the overall health of the global polymers industry, especially polyolefins, because of its heavy dependence on imports (see the slide below, courtesy of Ali Murat Ayar – managing director of Say Polymers, the Amsterdam-headquartered global polyolefins trader and distributor with operations in Turkey). If […]
Southeast Asia’s Export Dependency
Source: Petroleum Institute of Thailand By John Richardson THERE is a lot of excitement about the self-sustaining nature of Southeast Asia’s (SEA) economy thanks to, for example, nine consecutive quarters of GDP growth of more than 6% in Indonesia and rising domestic consumption across the region. But, as we discuss in this Insight article […]
European Processors Bemoan Volatility
By John Richardson THE blog listened to an interesting discussion yesterday, on the first day of the 2nd ICIS World Polyolefins Conference in Berlin, during which plastics processors tackled the perennial issue of volatility. They complained that: *Trying to build long-term relationships with producers is difficult because polymer sales guys only stay in their jobs […]
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