By John Richardson POLYPROPYLENE (PP) producers and their customers, the plastic converters, are on the cusp of a great opportunity. Let’s start with the producers. The potential for low-priced propylene for several years to come will push PP prices down, thus giving PP the chance to gain market share from other polymers such as polystyrene, […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Not Since1992 Has Propylene Been So Cheap Versus Ethylene
By John Richardson EVER since we first started assessing Northeast Asia ethylene and propylene CFR spot prices, which was in November 1992, the market has never been like this. Propylene has never traded at such a big a discount to ethylene. To give you some details from the above chart, you need to break this […]
Cheap Oil Will Help You Sell A Million Tonnes Of Ethylene
By John Richardson TOMORROW’S winners will be those who recognise that oil, oil products such as gasoline and diesel and chemicals markets have changed for good. They will understand that this has generated a whole range of new opportunities to make a profit and to sell huge volumes of product. These two things are obviously […]
Propylene: How To Turn Oversupply To Your Advantage
The world has changed for good. Old ways of running petrochemicals businesses no longer work. Click here for details on an important new ICIS/International eChem study that will help you prosper in this radically different environment. And see below for a brief outline of one of the key themes that we shall explore in the […]
China, Polyolefins And The New Five-Year-Plan
By John Richardson CHINA is still a planned economy, but everything doesn’t always work out as planned – hence the above chart, which shows that: Installed ethylene capacity will by the end of this year be around 3.5 million tonnes/year lower than the government’s target of approximately 26 million tonnes/year. This was the capacity Beijing […]
China’s Latest Rate Cut: At Long Last The Right Reaction
By John Richardson HERE is the good news about China’s latest interest rate cut and reduction in its bank-reserve requirement: Most people are at long last seeing these types of measures for what they really are, which is an attempt to reduce the short-term pain. In the past, too many people – both short-term investors and the long-term […]
Oil Analysts Should Have Taken “O Level” History In The 1970s
By John Richardson WHEN Abraham Darby discovered a way of using coke to smelt iron ore in place of increasingly expensive wood in 1709 his technology didn’t stand still. Armies of engineers sought ways of making his process better, which led to the pivotal introduction in 1828 of “hot blast” technology. The “hot blast” breakthrough […]
2016 Petchems Budgets: The Risks Of Expecting Even More
By John Richardson WHEN you have had a terrific year your boss will often expect the following year to be even better. But what if the terrific year you have had is down to nothing more than good luck? “When we were planning for 2015 we knew that the economic background would be hard and […]
Electricity And Freight: Measuring Up To The New China
By John Richardson FIRST of all they were brilliant, almost omnipotent, and so China represented a constant “long” option: Just shove more and more money in that direction and you were guaranteed to enjoy fantastic returns. The handful of middle-aged men who run China were then suddenly uniquely incompetent, meaning you simply had to short […]
US Oil Exports And The Struggle For Jobs
By John Richardson THERE are few other genuine long-term bright spots in the US economy other than shale oil and shale gas unless you are at the very top of the economic pile and so view cloud computing, social media and internet search engines as equivalent to “Morning in America” again. Cloud computing, social media […]
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