This excellent article from The Economist about vertical integration got me thinking that if, say, auto makers start buying up parts suppliers in developed markets (in developing markets the plastics processing industry is too fragmented) we could end up facing a whole new set of industry dynamics. Buying up your supplier, or at least offering […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Trade protectionism on the rise
antidumping petitions, trade protection, WTO applied and bound tariff rates
As this is the season of goodwill…..
debt forgiveness, rescheduling mortgages, Nail Ferguson, Financial Times, global property slump
Obama’s impact on Asian petchems
The new energy New Deal, death of the Asian export model, new types of growth, bankers,
Uncle Karl is back in fashion
Karl Marx, The Miner’s Strike, Margaret Thatcher, Thatcherism, capitalism, financial meltdown
Crikey, did I eat that much?
Pimco, Mohamed El-Erian, financial meltdown, financial rescue package, American Chemistry Council
Do you ever get that sinking feeling?
polar bears, camels, New Scientist, climate change, light bulbs, camels, uptight neighbours, American Pyschological Association, US National Research Council
Shell plans for the long-term
See below for an extended interview with Shell Chemicals vice president, Ben van Beurden, who talks of the search for new feedstock sources. He raises the possiblity of using syngas from the Pearl GTL project in Qatar to make methanol and then olefins. Or perhaps the high paraffinic naphtha and ethane from the same project […]
Here we go again – 1997 is back…..
I sincerely hope not, but all the signs are there because of: *A financial crisis which nobody again saw coming, this time with global implications *What could prove to be too much spending on new equipment and capacity. This time high equity prices have paid for these investments rather than US dollar-denominated bank loans, as […]
How dependent is Chinese growth on the US?
According to this article from The Economist, total China exports account for less than 10% of China’s GDP when “value add” is stripped out – much less than the headline 40% figure for 2007, which includes imported and domestic inputs. Good news as we enter the New Year, given that a US recession now appears […]
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