By John Richardson SOUTH Korea is set to raise its ethylene and propylene capacities by 700,000 tonne/year and 740,000 tonne/year by 2013, Seo Kyung Sun, executive director of the consulting business of Seoul-based Chemical Market Research Inc (CMRI) told the blog last week. Downstream expansions in polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP) and ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Polyolefins Supply Surge Warning – Yet Again
By John Richardson A GREAT deal more polyolefins supply is expected to hit the Asian markets over the next few months resulting in what two chemicals analysts tell the blog will be depressed margins up until March next year. After that the analysts – one in Singapore and the other in South Korea – predict […]
Flood Of LPG Supply On The Way
Here is another article on the liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) market, a subject we have covererd several times on the blog over the last few months. Below we discuss how the temporary supply constraints that have kept LPG tight this year look set to end, creating a very attractive feedstock option for higher-cost Asian cracker […]
Don’t worry, be happy
By Malini Hariharan The blog was able to talk to a Korean polyolefins producer who was not perturbed by the recent weakness in Chinese demand and was fairly confident of selling October volumes. “It’s the holiday season so converters do not want to buy. But I see no reason to lower prices. We have sold […]
Chandra Asri And TriPolyta To Merge
By John Richardson The consolidation talked about in Indonesia for more than ten years – that between cracker operator and polyethylene (PE) producer Chandra Asri and polypropylene (PP) producer TriPolyta – is finally set to happen by January next year. Now it will be up to the companies to make the synergies work with the most […]
European Polyolefins: The Luxury of Unintended Consequences
Another excuse for a Dylan picture – ref “Shelter From The Storm” Source of picture: www.israbox.com By John Richardson WEST EUROPEAN polyolefin markets remain tight thanks to the lingering effects of lack of spending on maintenance, several market sources have told the blog. “Companies were so short of cash from late 2008 that they began […]
Singapore’s aromatics binge
By Malini Hariharan Jurong Aromatics Corp (JAC), part of a rare breed of standalone aromatics projects, is finally seeing some progress. At a time when most new aromatic projects are integrated with refinery operations, JAC plans to build a condensate splitter and an aromatics facility to produce 800,000 tonnes/year of paraxylene (PX), 450,000 tonnes/year of […]
Long-term Shift In LPG Cracking Economics
Source of picture: the truth about cars By John Richardson WHEN my fellow blogger Malini Hariharan once asked a particularly unhelpful individual who used to track polyethylene (PE) markets what was going on, his only response was “conditions are volatile”. And so as you kick-off this fine and sunny morning (at least it is here […]
Indian PP producers benefit from strong growth
By Malini Hariharan Indian polypropylene (PP) demand continues to remain strong with most end-use sectors showing good growth and it is local producers who are catering to the additional requirement. Polypropylene (PP) demand is estimated to have expanded by 13% to 809,000 tonnes during April-July, reports my colleague Prema Viswanathan on ICIS news. But import […]
Asia awash with aromatics
By Malini Hariharan Excess availability of product continues to trouble Asian aromatics markets. Commissioning of new plants and reluctance to cut operating rates has resulted in a steady build up of stocks over the last few months. Take the case of paraxylene (PX). The spread between naphtha and PX prices has been running below $250-300/tonne, […]
Jump to page: