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Asian Chemical Connections

OPEC, China Inflation And Petchems

By John Richardson OPEC’s decision to maintain crude quotas at current levels could give the banks further ammunition to manipulate opinion that the black stuff is genuinely in tight supply. There is plenty of evidence that oil is, in fact, still pretty long – and that this bull-run is yet again about speculators talking up […]

Petchems And Tomorow’s OPEC Meeting

By John Richardson THE next OPEC meeting – which takes place in Ecuador this Saturday (11 December) – is crucial for petrochemicals for two reasons. Firstly, the crude market has turned bullish recently as a result of the early onset of winter in Europe and the growing belief that the oil-supply cushion is being reduced. […]

Chinese MEG Demand Up By 2m tonnes This Year

By Malini Hariharan Global monoethylene glycol (MEG) markets are likely to remain robust in 2011, supported by strong demand from China and a lack of new capacity additions, a top executive from MEGlobal told the blog at the 5th Gulf Petrochemicals and Chemicals Association (GPCA) forum being held in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE). […]

December Polyolefin Price Rises Flounder

“I am so happy to be supporting polyethylene film pricing”…. Source of picture: Canada-China Agriculture and Food Development Exchange   By John Richardson IT looks as if attempts by polyolefin producers to raise prices for December deliveries have, as we predicted last week, been largely unsuccessful. Some grades of polypropylene (PP) edged up by $10-20/tonne […]

December Polyolefin Price-Rise Bid Will Fail

By John Richardson and Malini Hariharan in Shanghai A TWO-TIER China polyolefin market had developed in China over the last couple of years – but the $64,000 question right now is: At which of these two levels will most business be settled during December? The ever-volatile Dalian Commodity Exchange determines the day-by-day sentiment, while overseas […]

Total waits for Qatar to decide

By Malini Hariharan Qatar Petroleum seems to be in no rush to sign up a foreign partner for its next cracker project. With doubts about ExxonMobil’s participation, the field has narrowed to Total Petrochemicals and Shell. Total’s proposal for a mixed-feed cracker ‘was still in the very early stages,’ said Graeme Burnett, the company’s senior […]

Saudi pressure fails to work

By Malini Hariharan The polypropylene (PP) anti-dumping investigation that Indian producers had initiated against exporters from Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Oman has finally drawn to a close. The Finance Ministry confirmed anti-dumping duties (ADD) late yesterday, just a day before a recommendation made by the Commerce Ministry in August was due to expire. Pic source: […]

Oversupply In Petchems Still On The Way

Perhaps not just yet…. By John Richardson COULD it be that some chemicals industry players and observers, in the great galloping rush to join the supercycle stampede, have got ahead of themselves in predicting that we are already through the bottom of the margins trough? This distinct possibility was raised by Joe Duffy, consultant with […]

US Petrochemicals A World Beater

Shell’s refinery and petchems complex in Deer Park, Texas Source of picture http://www.msnbc.msn.com/   By John Richardson THE excellent third-quarter financial results of the likes of Dow Chemical and LyondellBasell further confirm the extraordinary turnaround in the cost positions of those with a big proportion of their global polyolefins production based in the US. Some […]

Iran Remains Optimistic On Exports

                                    Dubai crucial for Iran   By Malini Hariharan The blog recently had an opportunity to talk to a few Iranian companies and was impressed by their sanguine approach to the challenges posed by the new round of sanctions. This too shall pass was the prevailing philosophy. “We have a long experience [in dealing with sanctions]; […]

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