By John Richardson WHY is it that even though demand in the US for petrochemicals is still well below the 2007 peak, as indicated by the latest American Chemistry Council capacity utilisation chart, the November ICIS Petrochemical (IPEX) for the US shows pricing at such elevated levels? (see the charts below). “Never mind,” one might […]
Asian Chemical Connections
European Chemicals: Rescue Efforts Continue
By John Richardson THE battle to save the European chemicals industry from widespread plant closures is wider than just at the Grangemouth complex in Scotland, the UK In Holland, for example, the Dutch chemicals industry trade body – Vereniging van de Nederlandse Chemische Industrie (VNCI) – is asking for subsidies and tax breaks from the Dutch […]
The Rebirth Of Naphtha Cracking
By John Richardson Might cracking naphtha in Asia, Europe, and perhaps even the US, once again become so attractive that it starts to challenge the big advantage currently being enjoyed by cracking ethane? Yes, perhaps. Opportunities could arise to take advantage of distressed supplies of naphtha from refiners under severe loss-making pressure. Shutting many […]
Guaranteeing The “Trickle Down” Effect
By John Richardson THE average-paid worker in a US company has to work for more than a month to earn what her or his CEO will earn in just one hour, according to this video from Adam Mordecai – the social and political commentator. And in 2012, the richest 1% of the population took home […]
Searching For A Manufacturing Revival
By John Richardson WALK into any airport bookshop and you will see shelf after shelf full of management and “get rich quick” books. How many books are you likely to see on inventing things and manufacturing? Hardly any….. The danger is that whilst we busy ourselves with pouring spurious knowledge into our heads about how […]
Grangemouth Viewed Through A Wider Lens
By John Richardson THROUGH the narrow lens of stand-alone cost competitiveness, the threatened refinery and petrochemicals complex in Grangemouth, Scotland the UK, (see picture) can be viewed as having a very questionable long-term future. For example, Britain’s refineries are viewed as small, old and lacking in sophistication. And it can be argued that they are […]
Global Petchem Markets Turn Bearish
By John Richardson EXCESSIVE inventory building down all the major petrochemical value chains is a global rather than just a Chinese problem, according to Paul Satchell – the UK-based chemicals analyst with global investment bank Canaccord Genuity in his latest Volume Proxy research note. “The Volume Proxy continues to decline, with the index now in clear […]
European Demographics Challenge US Export Assumptions
By John Richardson US feedstock advantages appear to provide an almost overwhelming case for a big wave of cracker and downstream investments, particularly in polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP). In contrast, Europe is struggling with much-higher feedstock costs and low economic growth, resulting in the possibility of many more capacity closures. Only last week, for […]
Germany’s Long-term Economic Challenges
Source of graph: Eurostat By John Richardson AS delegates gather for this year’s European Petrochemical Association (EPCA) meeting in Berlin, which takes place on 5-9 October, it might be tempting to believe that Europe has turned the corner. Supporting this argument has been the release of lots of positive economy data recently. For example, […]
Analyse The Data And Listen To Li Keqiang
By John Richardson IT IS important to look at long-term trends in China rather than be misled by a few positive sets of data. This is not pessimism, just realism. Yesterday saw the release of very good August export data. Exports were up by 7.2% from year earlier, and were 5.1% higher than in July […]
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