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Asian Chemical Connections

China Labour Shortage Threat To Chem Demand Grows

“Sorry, but there’s more to life – I really don’t want to do this anymore…” Source of picture: China Daily   By John Richardson The labour shortage crisis in southern China – which one trader had claimed would last exactly ten days beyond the end of a recent polyolefins conference – is proving to be […]

Benzene: What Lies Beneath

A Ring of Truth? Source of picture: http://web.pdx.edu/~nathanh/benzene/benzene2.gif   By John Richardson TUMBLING Asian benzene prices are being blamed on weaker crude, itself a reflection of macro-economic worries over higher-than-expected US jobless figures, government debt problems in the Euro zone and tighter credit in China. “It’s not a question of whether, but when the secon dip […]

Thai Start-up Delays On Court Ruling: The Details

The Thai Supreme Court’s decision to uphold a September injunction halting development of $12bn of petrochemical and power projects could affect the on-schedule start-up of capacities of a large amount of petrochemicals capacity. Note the word could because, despite the court ruling supporting claims by environmentalists about the impact of pollution at the site, PTT […]

China Real Estate: When Is A Bubble A Bubble?

      Source of picture: www.managingthedragon.com By John Richardson I love the phrase used by Andrew Peaple of the Wall Street Journal in this article on China’s property “bubble”: Getting a straight answer is like “nailing jelly to a wall”, in other words xxxxxx impossible. I will be in Shanghai next week on a business […]

“Middle East To Control Basic Chems In 3-5 Years”

Abu Dhabi ahead in the race? Source of picture: www.gulftrackservices.com By John Richardson The global basic chemicals industry is likely to end up under the dominant control of the Middle East, and possibly Asia, within the next 3-5 years, a senior chemicals industry source told this blog. “We have known for a long time that […]

Naphtha Highest Level For More Than A Year

 Shelf-space to be in short supply again? Source of picture: www.zrdata.com   ASIAN naphtha prices hit their highest level for more than a year yesterday – reaching $701/tonne CFR Japan for second-half December open-spec material on “improved market conditions”. Earlier this week we picked up more reports of bleak demand in styrenics and fibre intermediates that […]

What the flipping heck is going on?….

…….and no trite Public Relations-speak answers, please!!!   This is not me, by the way, (my computer is an older model) but the expression about sums it up www.scienceblogs.com   No matter where you seem to turn these days, whether it’s to the refinery industry or to any chemicals production chain, the story is more or […]

China Sept chemical import-surge data

More of the cheap stuff? Source of picture: www.thelocal.de   Some of the China import data for September is now available – showing record-high imports of monoethylene glycol (MEG), ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA), polyacetal, polycarbonate (PC). “I have given up trying to figure this out. There is not sufficient accurate information anywhere to read a […]

China’s chemical imports up – again!

By John Richardson We don’t have the actual data yet (hopefully, we’ll be able to give you the numbers later this week), but…… ……China’s commodity chemicals and polymer imports “continued to amaze” in September with monoethylene glycol (MEG) shipments hitting an all-time high, said Jean Sudol, president of US-based International Trader Publications Inc (ITP). “Imports […]

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 […]

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