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Asian Chemical Connections

The Unexpected Bonus For Polyolefins – In Summary

Every dark cloud has a silver lining… By John Richardson GLOBAL polyolefins markets are being kept very tight be a collection of what might seem like only temporary factors. But in the case of the butene-1 shortage, for example, (see below) this has been restricting linear-low density polyethylene (LLDPE) for more than a year. And many […]

Polyethylene Price Recovery Built On House Of Cards

  Source of picture: keplarllp.com   By John Richardson It always seemed as if the Asian polyethylene (PE) price rebound was built on a house of cards. The Chinese economy is slowing down, the country’s domestic production has greatly increased and new capacity in the Middle East – though still plagued by start-up and operating […]

Fingers Crossed For No Double-Dip Recession

    The Risk Of Exhausted Optimism Source of picture: http://www.thedigeratilife.com/blog/double-dip-recession/   By John Richardson Global polyethylene (PE) oversupply will be “challenging but manageable” over the next year-and-a-half provided there is no double-dip economic downturn, said Joe Duffy, consultant with DeWitt & Co. “My analysis suggests that if economic growth continues into 2011 at the […]

China’s Unstoppable Consumption Juggernaut?

    The major long-term shift in US refinery economics and C3s   Source of picture: blueplanetgreenliving.com     By John Richardson CHINA will account for around one-third of global polypropylene (PP) consumption by the middle of this decade, up from the current 25%, as domestic demand continues to grow at more than 10% a […]

Propylene And the Law Of Unintended Consequences

Will this year’s K-Fair see some major announcements to take advantage of the relative fall in ethylene costs? Source of picture; http://www.k-online.de/   By John Richardson THE rise in the price of propylene relative to ethylene is exercising the minds of senior executives in the polypropylene (PP) industry. As fellow blogger Paul Hodges highlighted earlier […]

Hambrecht Reportedly Attacks China Business Climate

Jurgen Hambrecht Source of picture: www.wiwo.de/unternehmen-maerkte   By John Richardson BASF’S Jurgen Hambrecht has made highly critical and extremely high-profile comments about China’s business environment, according to the Financial Times. The CEO of the German chemicals giant is quoted as saying over the weekend – during a four-day visit to China by German chancellor, Angela […]

China GDP Reduction Spells Tough H2 For Chems

  Source of picture: www.en.cn.national   By John Richardson THE decline in China’s GDP (gross domestic product) growth from 11.9% in Q1 to 10.3% in the first quarter is, no matter how you try to dress it up, bad news for the chemicals industry. Government officials and some economists are arguing that the moderation is […]

Global Chems Outlook: Pockets Of Strength And Weakness

  Spain saves the world economy     Source of picture: www.fifa.com   By John Richardson GLOBAL chemicals sentiment seems to be muddled and confused as the constant flood of positive and negative macro economic data. Take last week’s American Chemistry Council (ACC) weekly report, for example, which at that time gave a clear indication that […]

Mood Becomes Gloomy On Macro Dangers

Dear Readers – here is, hopefully, a hand summary of some of the key themes that have emerged over the past two weeks with some important additional data on imports and inventory levels in China – plus a rather unscientific industry confidence survey.   By John Richardson The mood seems to have changed since the […]

Assessing Real Versus Sensationalised Risks

  Source of picture: www.sierraclubgreenhome.com   By John Richardson WHEN the bisphenol-A (BPA) health scare erupted a couple of years ago I rushed out and changed all my baby boy’s milk bottles to ones made from polypropylene (PP). “Did you know that there are concerns now being expressed in Europe about the plasticisers used in […]

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