By John Richardson WALK into any airport bookshop and you will see shelf after shelf full of management and “get rich quick” books. How many books are you likely to see on inventing things and manufacturing? Hardly any….. The danger is that whilst we busy ourselves with pouring spurious knowledge into our heads about how […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Grangemouth Viewed Through A Wider Lens
By John Richardson THROUGH the narrow lens of stand-alone cost competitiveness, the threatened refinery and petrochemicals complex in Grangemouth, Scotland the UK, (see picture) can be viewed as having a very questionable long-term future. For example, Britain’s refineries are viewed as small, old and lacking in sophistication. And it can be argued that they are […]
China PE Imports: A Long-Term Outlook
By John Richardson THE chart below is worth revisiting, and pondering again, as we attempt to assess the future of polyethylene (PE) exports to China. In the case of the Middle East, as the chart shows, it has been a case of “so far so good” in 2013. Overall PE import volumes from the […]
Asia Ex-China: The Outlook For 2014 And Beyond
By John Richardson IN a special series of blog posts over the next few weeks we will re-examine the outlook for the major Asian petrochemical producing countries, ex-China. The posts won’t necessarily appear every day, as important news events may require immediate analysis, but our aim is to finish the series by mid-October. Last month, […]
More People Wanting To Buy Than Sell
By John Richardson SOME people in the petrochemicals industry are showing great confidence in the future. Perhaps it is no coincidence that several of these people are said to be Chinese domestic traders in polyethylene (PE) and mono-ethylene glycol (MEG) who might have long positions to protect. But if PE is in genuinely wonderful shape, […]
Northeast Asia Confronts PVC Consolidation
By John Richardson ASIAN higher cost polyvinyl chloride (PVC) producers are facing the twin squeeze of increased electricity costs and very competitive exports from the US, according to an industry source the blog met with in Taipei, ahead of tomorrow and Friday’s 2013 Asia Petrochemical Industry Conference (APIC). Such is the pressure on the Japanese, […]
In Search Of Smart Customers
By John Richardson JUST about every Asian cracker operator is losing money right now, according to a polyolefin industry source. And the above chart indicates that margins are wafer-thin in Northeast Asia because of the unexpected weakness in the China market, where polyethylene (PE) demand growth is forecast to either be flat or in negative […]
Northeast Asian PE Margins Positive
By John Richardson THE latest Northeast Asian high-density polyethylene (HDPE) chart from ICIS (see above) hardly suggests a tremendous increase in profitability, despite the improvement in sales volumes and sentiment in China that we first highlighted in December, and provided more details on last week. At least the Northeast Asian producers have moved into slightly positive territory, though, […]
NATPET Warns On Saudi Gas Increase
By John Richardson SAUDI ARABIA’S National Petrochemical Industrial Co (NATPET) has gone public over an issue that has worried Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) petrochemical producers for several years now: The erosion of the GCC’s competitive advantage over the US. “There has been a migration of investment to the US that is a very clear threat […]
US Threat To Asian Polyolefins
So far so good…lack of arbitrage in 2012 By John Richardson Despite a strong recovery in China’s polyethylene (PE) prices and sales over the last month-and-a-half, producers are viewing the coming year with great trepidation. One of the wild cards is how the US producers behave in 2013, as we also discussed in November. Faced […]
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