By John Richardson THE US petrochemicals industry is battling hard to block an explosion in liquefied natural gas (LNG) investments that they fear would result in a rise in ethane, propane and butane feedstock costs. Andrew Liveris, CEO of Dow Chemical, raised this issue in December, but the pressure from the industry on legislators responsible […]
Asian Chemical Connections
US Petchems “Double Peak” Theory
Wall Street rounding up investors? Source of picture: Rex Features In a guest blog post, Joseph Chang, the global editor of our magazine, ICIS Chemical Business, echoes our own concerns that it is getting very frothy out there. The “this time it will be different” school of thought sems to be controlling the sentiment […]
US Shale Row Flares UP
Sorry for the corny headline; we couldn’t resist it. By John Richardson THE argument that the switch to natural gas from coal and oil is good for the environment has been further undermined by reports earlier this week of the big increase in the amount of gas-flaring in the US. When the blog visited […]
PTA Price Decline Reflects Realities
By John Richardson The end of the eight-week long bull-run in China’s purified terephthalic acid (PTA) pricing might well indicate a wider problem about to beset other petrochemicals: Reality undermining the positive sentiment of the early part of this year. “PTA prices surged by 10% from early November to early January, mainly led by a […]
Ten Solutions For The Global Economy
By John Richardson LAST week we highlighted how a Boston Consulting Group study has reached many of the same conclusions as our e-book, Boom, Gloom & The New Normal, on the fault lines in the global economy. Similarly, many of the ten solutions suggested in the study are in line with what we think needs […]
Labour Supply After Chinese New Year
Chinese job seekers at a recruitment fair Imaginechina/Rex Features By John Richardson As petrochemicals markets begin to slow down ahead of the Chinese New Year, which this year falls on 10 February, a lot of attention is, as always, being focused on the likely strength of demand after the holidays. The hope is that […]
Ponzi Scheme Economics
By John Richardson AN important study by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) underlines most of the views we put forward in our e-book, Boom Gloom & The New Normal. “The developed world’s Ponzi scheme is caused by record-high levels of public and private debt. And it is exacerbated by huge unfunded liabilities that will be […]
Crude Oil Price Risks Escalate
By John Richardson FINANCIAL speculators began to play an increasing role in crude-oil markets following liberalisation of financial trading rules, signed into law by Bill Clinton in 2000, as we argued in chapter 3 of our e-book, Boom Gloom & The New Normal. The disconnect between real supply and demand for crude and the influence […]
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, […]
The Attention Span Of Commodity Markets
By John Richardson PARTICIPANTS in commodity and financial markets sometimes appear to have very short attention spans. But they are merely doing their jobs by seeking to stretch out rallies as long as possible through claiming everything that was being discussed a few months, weeks or even days ago is suddenly invalid. (see the above […]
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