By John Richardson DURING the economic Supercycle life was easy for chemicals companies. Strong and constant demand growth was assured and so all they had to do was focus on building new, cost-effective capacity. Top-down strategy was generic – a one-size-fits-all approach. Even if chemicals companies got the timing of new capacities slightly wrong it […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Malaysia: Taking The Long View
Source: Malaysia Petrochemicals Association By John Richardson THE problems in Malaysia have been evident for a long time. But thanks to the irresponsible and failed actions of the US Fed, the flow of funds into the Southeast country had led to a papering-over of the cracks in its economic growth model. The same, as […]
China Market Intelligence Still Contradicts PE Demand Rise
By John Richardson The debate continues as to exactly why polyethylene (PE) apparent demand (domestic production plus imports) in China rose by 13% in January-June of this year compared with the same period in 2011. Why the anxiety? Because most of the industry people that the blog speaks are still finding it difficult to match […]
Holding India’s Leaders To Account
Source: ICIS Consulting By John Richardson It has now become widely recognised that India is in serious trouble. The consensus has shifted over the […]
Without The Benefit Of Time
Victorian Britain (Source of picture: Wikimedia) By John Richardson LIFE in China can be grim, much as it was in Britain during its industrial development. In China, according to The Economist: A tenth of the country’s […]
Water Shortages to Scupper China CTO Industry
By John Richardson THE debate about how exactly how much coal-to-olefins (CTO) capacity China will add has been largely around the economics of the process versus that of naphtha cracking. In terms of capital costs, building a CTO complex costs 1.5-2 times more than constructing a naphtha cracker, according to our colleagues at CBI […]
China PE Demand Boosted By New Environmental Clampdown On Recycling
By John Richardson BACK in 2009, virgin polyolefins demand growth in China was boosted by a sharp drop in imports of recycled or scrap plastic resulting from tougher enforcement of environmental regulations. Now another government crackdown on imports of scrap material, again due to environmental concerns, might have provided a further benefit to demand growth for […]
Europe’s Rubbish Solution
By John Richardson SHALE gas may never be a significant energy solution for Europe because the political challenges are just too great, as this article in the Financial Times points out.For example, the FT writes that: Fracking is banned in France and the Netherlands. The Dutch government scrapped a parliamentary proposal to allow fracking […]
It Is Just Too Difficult
Smart bottles By John Richardson THERE is a growing concern amongst some polyolefin industry executives that, despite the economic problems first in China and now India, there is still a great deal of enthusiasm for adding new capacity, as we discuss in this ICIS Insight article. “Now that China has weakened, everybody has switched […]
More Great News On China
Pollution over eastern China Source of picture: Wikimedia By John Richardson IT wasn’t the kind of news that China’s polyethylene (PE) traders wanted to reflect on over the weekend. On Friday, China’s cabinet – the State Council – announced that it had adopted 10 measures designed to improve air quality. “Many of the measures […]
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