By John Richardson THE search for feedstock advantage is constant, given that some 80-90% of variable costs for any petrochemicals producer consists of the cost of acquiring raw materials. Hence, my colleague Nigel Davis, in this excellent Insight article, writes: The US company, Enterprise Products, is planning an ethane export terminal on the US Gulf […]
Asian Chemical Connections
The Petronas Decision And Singapore
By John Richardson THE blog continues to ponder the significance of the Petronas announcement that it is to go ahead with its $27bn refinery-petrochemicals project – the Pengerang Integrated Complex (PIC) at Johor in Malaysia. “It means that Singapore faces a competitor with deep pockets. Time to assess the winners and losers on Singapore’s Jurong […]
China Turns A Corner On Shale Gas
By John Richardson CHINA has more shale gas reserves than the US, and, like the US six years ago, confronts a dangerous reliance on imported energy. But the development of the shale industry in China is being hampered by water shortages, poor intellectual property rights protection leading to lack of access to cutting edge US […]
The Petronas Decision: What It Means
By John Richardson LAST week’s decision by Petronas to go ahead with its $27bn refinery and petrochemicals complex at Pengerang in Johor, Malaysia, tells us that: Nation building remains important in the petrochemicals business. This project will create huge further economic value for Malaysia through all the construction and operating jobs created and the revenues […]
US Shale Gas: Demand Is The Thing
By John Richardson Here is one way of looking at the shale gas industry in the US from a March Oxford Economics Report: While most of the companies that have made write-downs are not quitting, many players in this industry have already noted that the revolution is not as technically and financially attractive as they […]
US Petchems Risk Getting Only One Cookie
By John Richardson WALTER Mischel, the psychologist, carried out an experiment on four-year-old children in the late 1960s. “They were given a choice between a small reward (one Oreo cookie), which they could have at any time, or a larger reward (two cookies) for which they had to wait for 15 minutes under difficult conditions,” […]
What Comes After Shale Gas
By John Richardson IF the blog had a dollar for every occasion it had heard the phrase “ the shale gas revolution” over the last five years, we would be sitting on the deck of our yacht in Monte Carlo harbour right now, pondering the dilemma of when would be a good time for us […]
LNG As Geopolitical Tool: US Would Need To Turn Communist
By John Richardson OVER the last couple of weeks, ever since Russia effectively annexed the Crimea, it has been argued that the US can use LNG as geopolitical weapon. By making the approvals process easier for LNG export terminals, this would make Europe less dependent on Russian gas – and thus make the Russians pause […]
Europe’s Dinosaur Destiny
By John Richardson DINOSAURS became extinct, scientists think, because of an event beyond their control – either an asteroid colliding with the earth, volcanic activity, an ice age, disease or gradual climate change. With all due respect to the former inhabitants of our planet, they were not the brightest of species. Thus, even if they […]
China’s About Turn: The Seven Global Implications
By John Richardson HISTORIANS will end up concluding that falling emerging market currencies and stock markets – the prelude to what could be a full-blown crisis – is really about China and not about the US Federal Reserve. The Fed is just a sideshow to the main event of what is going to drive not […]
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