Source of picture: Chinaenvironmentallaw.com Talk around the water-cooler in Shanghai offices at the moment is the fall in the cost of a car-license plate in September to a lowest bid of Yuan 27,000 ($3,953) from around Yuan 36,000 in August. “It surprised everyone because the forecast had been for the price to actually go up […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Western Polymers: Get Out Or Get Cleverer?
MOVING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION (SORRY, OUCH….!) Source of Picture: www.autospies.com The automobile industry in the West has been bought more time by economic stimulus, as this article in The Economist points out. But some of the discussions at the Frankfurt International Motor Show, which takes place on 15-27 September, will be about the future […]
Dalian Swings In Favour Of The Buyers
Polyolefin producers doing RMB business in China were delighted when price increases on the Dalian Commodity Exchange linear-low density polyethylene (LLDPE) futures contract started leading the physical market on the way up. “We used the exchange to justify charging higher prices for real deals because in the heady days of February-early August the general trend […]
How do Asian cracker operators compete?
Source of Picture: www.autospies.com Not an easy answer and not one much suited to a few paragraphs of blogging. But here’s one thought as the competitive environment becomes a great deal more difficult due to new Middle East capacity and the potential for China to move towards self-sufficiency in polyethylene and polypropylene: Have a chat […]
The Philippines: Left With the Crumbs
“Here’s your entire allocation for this month” Source of Picture: Adammakwright.wordpress In the words of a plastics converter from the Philippines: “Markets are so tight at the moment that we are left to pick up the crumbs. Suppliers are concentrating almost entirely on China.” The converters have been waiting for so long for the great […]
What I Want To Know in H2 – Part Two
Garbage out, garbage in Source of Picture: The Daily Telegraph Here goes for the second part of this series. Is there anybody out there who can help? How will the ongoing availability of recycled material affect the pricing power of virgin resins? (We have the data to show that imports of scrap polyethylene (PE) and […]
Reports of the death of US PP exaggerated
“Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated,” Mark Twain once famously said after his obituary was published before he had died. Similarly, the US polypropylene (PP) industry had been virtually written off late last year after a calamitous collapse in pricing resulted in inventory losses totalling a staggering $700m in November alone. But the day […]
Dalian: A Whole New Ball Game?
Source of picture: waittilnextcentury.blogspot Back to an old theme, the Dalian Commodity Exchange, this story from ICIS news talks of how physical cargoes are being bought and then sold at a price fixed now for November delivery. At the time of writing this was realising a $169/tonne profit. This could be old news, but I […]
What I Want to Know in H2 – Part One
How will this one run? Source of Picture: chemicals-technology.com In the 12 years I’ve been covering the chemicals industry I don’t think I have come across a time of such exceptional market muddle. The traders love it. As a wise man said to me the other day, “When I was a trader I only cared […]
Chemicals company H2 complacency?
Chemical companies as a whole displayed “dangerously complacent” views about second-half 2009 prospects when they released their Q2 results late last week, argues chemicals analyst Paul Satchell in his blog. “They believe that demand has bottomed. Although they can’t see the upturn yet they believe the worst is definitely behind us,” writes Satchell. “This blog […]
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