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LyondellBasell court hearing deferred to 12 Jan

Yesterday’s crucial court hearing to determine whether LyondellBasell would have until 6 September 2010 to solicit votes for its reorganization plan has been adjourned to 12 January. It means some more waiting for Reliance Industries which is said to be seeking greater clarity from the court before it decides on a final bid for LyondellBasell. […]

Reliance decision on LyondellBasell after court hearing

By Malini Hariharan Yesterday’s media report about Reliance Industries on the verge of taking a final decision on LyondellBasell appears to have been a little premature. My sources say that a decision will be made only after the US bankruptcy court decides on a restructuring plan put forward by LyondellBasell. The company filed a revised […]

Will Reliance decide today on LyondellBasell?

By Malini Hariharan Reliance Industries will take a call today on submitting a final bid for LyondellBasell, says this report from CNBC TV18. The report, quoting unnamed sources, adds that Reliance may be having second thoughts about the acquisition. Key concerns are said to be LyondellBasell’s high debt, potential liabilities if it tries to shut […]

Reliance moving fast on LyondellBasell bid

By Malini Hariharan Reliance Industries’ bid to acquire LyondellBasell is progressing quite rapidly. I am told that a team of top executives from the company is in the US holding discussions with LyondellBasell. And according to this report in the Houston Chronicle, the team has also been enjoying Indian food in Houston. My source tells […]

Has Shell Made The Right Choices on MEG?

Looking pretty – the new Shell plant at night: Sourceof picture: Shell Chemicals   By John Richardson WHEN Shell Chemicals officially opened its OMEGA process 750,000 tonne/year monoethylene glycol (MEG) plant in Singapore today, it mentioned how its global production share of the fibre intermediate was only 7%. One might wonder how effective this is […]

China’s Growth In 2010: Two Theories

More buying of junk in H1 next year that nobody really needs? Source: www.blogcleveland.com     By John Richardson TWO theories about growth in China next year revolve around either an appreciation or devaluation of the Yuan. The appreciation theory is far more widespread as it assumes no global double-dip economic recession. It’s assumed that […]

Thai Start-ups: What A Muddle

  A real head scratcher…… Source of picture: www/http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com     By John Richardson Confused? Sorry, but so far we cannot be of much help bringing any precision to what the implications of Thailand’s Supreme Court ruling will mean for the timing of petrochemical start-ups. If you remember, last Friday we wrote about how the Supreme Court […]

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 […]

The Immediate Dubai Impact

On A Very Sticky Wicket www.theage.com.au     By John Richardson As one my colleagues said – it’s a good job the US stock markets were closed for Thanksgiving. Lots of efforts are being made to talk the Dubai World crisis and down – and despite drops in Middle East market equities – Asian markets rallied […]

Anxiety Builds Over China Growth

Will growth spread quickly enough? Source of picture: www.oraclemarketplace.co.uk       By John Richardson Global chemicals production had returned to 2006 levels by October of this year, according to this slide ACCProduction09Versus06.ppt from the American Chemistry Council (ACC). Worldwide chemicals growth rates might not return to 2008 levels until 2012, Jurgen Hambrecht, CEO of BASF, warned […]

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