By Malini Hariharan News is slowly trickling in on the status of Japanese petrochemical plants. Only four of the country’s 14 crackers have shut down while a few are running at reduced rates, reports ICIS news. JX Nippon Oil & Energy has shut its 460,000 tonnes/year cracker at Kawasaki while Maruzen Petrochemical has shut its […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Japan Disaster 2 – Refining, Petchems Update
By John Richardson OUR sympathies again go to the people of Japan. The main focus should be on providing as much support as possible to the rescue efforts and let’s hope that petrochemical companies globally step forward. But as we said yesterday, life goes on. The Japanese stock market was down around 5% this morning in early trading, […]
Japan Disaster: Immediate Petchem, Refining Impact
By John Richardson THE earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan on Friday afternoon is still hard to take in. We send our sympathy to everyone connected with this disaster and just hope and pray that the rescue efforts go exceptionally well. As Japan returns to work this morning it will confront the huge cost of […]
Bayer Material Science Outlines Global Strategy
Patrick Thomas Source of picture: Bayer Material Science By John Richardson SUCCESS in chemicals – whether you are into commodities or specialities – is largely about eking out maximum value from every single molecule in all the important markets. The almost obsessive focus on China and other emerging markets might give the impression that […]
The LPG Cracking Myth Debunked
We are deeply ashamed of ourselves…. By John Richardson AT the risk of boring you completely senseless let us once again return to the subject of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and its likely usefulness as a cracker feedstock over the coming years. The reason why we keep going on and on about this subject […]
Flood Of LPG Supply On The Way
Here is another article on the liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) market, a subject we have covererd several times on the blog over the last few months. Below we discuss how the temporary supply constraints that have kept LPG tight this year look set to end, creating a very attractive feedstock option for higher-cost Asian cracker […]
Japan More Competitive Than You Might Think
Tokyo at nightSource of picture: liveworldtours.com By Malini Hariharan it is easy to write off the Japanese petrochemicals industry which has for long struggled to find a solution to the dual pressure of rising global competition and an anaemic home market. Japanese companies, once at the forefront of the Asian industry, have […]
Saudi Arabia: The Implications Of Going Downstream
An example of how Lexan solar control IR sheets (made by SABIC Innovative Plastics) can be put to use Source of picture: SABIC By John Richardson SAUDI ARABIA is busy reshaping its petrochemical industry to reflect a drastic shift in priorities. Such is the change in the kingdom that commentators are going so as […]
Long-term Shift In LPG Cracking Economics
Source of picture: the truth about cars By John Richardson WHEN my fellow blogger Malini Hariharan once asked a particularly unhelpful individual who used to track polyethylene (PE) markets what was going on, his only response was “conditions are volatile”. And so as you kick-off this fine and sunny morning (at least it is here […]
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 […]
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