Source of picture: the-office.com By John Richardson A FURTHER illustration of the Alice in Wonderland world of financial investors versus the fundamentals of real demand was provided by the Dalian Commodity Exchange earlier this week. “Some investment funds started snapping up linear low density PE (LLDPE) futures in anticipation of improvement in […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Polyethylene Price Recovery Built On House Of Cards
Source of picture: keplarllp.com By John Richardson It always seemed as if the Asian polyethylene (PE) price rebound was built on a house of cards. The Chinese economy is slowing down, the country’s domestic production has greatly increased and new capacity in the Middle East – though still plagued by start-up and operating […]
Map Ta Phut issue drags on
By Malini Hariharan The Thai government is doing all it can to quickly resolve the Map Ta Phut crisis but full operations at PTT Chem’s new cracker is likely only in early 2011. Feedstock ethane for the 1m tonnes/year cracker will be supplied from PTT’s No6 gas separation plant commissioning of which has been held […]
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 […]
Saudi Feedstock Problems Worsen
SABIC headquarters in Riyadh Source of picture: france24.com By John Richardson The days when the price of future ethane supply in Saudi Arabia – at the time called an advantaged feedstock because nobody knew what else to do with it – was based only on the cost of separation and distribution have long […]
ExxonMobil Says Qatar C2s Still On
By John Richardson EXXONMOBIL is insisting that its cracker and derivatives project with Qatar Petroleum is still on despite a media report to the contrary. It certainly seems as if there are several suitors for this particular bride – perhaps the last major feedstock parcel available for petrochemicals in Qatar for some time. The economics […]
China’s coal chemical projects take shape
By Malini Hariharan The first of China’s major coal-based chemical projects has finally started trial operations. ICIS news reports that methanol has been fed at Shenhua Baotou’s 600,000 tonnes/year methanol-to-olefins (MTO) plant at Baotou, in inner Mongolia. The unit can produce 300,000 tonnes/year each of ethylene and propylene. But the downstream polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene […]
ExxonMobil Formally Out Of Qatar C2s – Report
Qatar Builds Its Future Source of picture: The New York Times By John Richardson EXXONMOBIL and Qatar Petroleum have formally ended their agreement to build a $6bn petrochemical complex in Qatar, says a report by the Middle East Economic Digest. This follows the earlier MEED report that discussions to break-up the JV had […]
Qatar Petroleum in Algerian cracker jv
By Malini Hariharan Qatar Petroleum’s (QP) ambition to extend its global reach has taken the company to Algeria. QP is reported to have picked up a 10% stake in the Total-Sonatrach joint-venture petrochemicals project at Arzew, Algeria. The entry of QP would result in a dilution of Total’s stake in the project to 41% with […]
Kuwait plans another cracker
By Malini Hariharan Despite doubts about availability of gas, its cost and viability of using naphtha or other feedstocks, companies from the Middle East are continuing to plan new petrochemical projects. The latest is Kuwait’s Petrochemical Industries Co (PIC) which is looking to invest $5bn in a new 1.4m tonnes/year mixed-feed cracker and derivatives complex. […]
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