Home Blogs Asian Chemical Connections

Asian Chemical Connections

China Economic Hype And Crude Oil

Let’s catch the bus from now on….  Source of picture: hybridcars.com   By John Richardson THE blog has long been worried about the difficulty, probably the impossibility, of accurately measuring real Chinese growth. And it gets harder as the country now has some 130,000 polyolefin traders and distributors, according to an estimate we heard last […]

China MTO/MTP – one more project starts

By Malini Hariharan Shenhua Ningxia has finally produced onspec propylene at its new 470,000 tonnes/year methanol-to-propylene (MTP) plant after starting trial operations last month. This marks the successful start of China’s first MTP project, which is also the world’s largest. There is one more due by the end of the year -Datang Power’s 450,000 tonnes/year […]

Getting Education Right Is Crucial

The brightest and the best, but will there be enough of them? Source of picture: schoolsinnewdelhi.com     By John Richardson EDUCATION, education and education are three of the biggest challenges facing developing countries over the next 10-20 years. This will determine overall growth of economies. Without the right skill sets the rapid rates of […]

Indian PP Growth On The Right Track

Here’s the stereotype…. Source of picture: www.watblog.com   By John Richardson WE talked last week about how emerging markets continue to astound when it comes to demand, meaning that we might have to take a long and hard look at the parameters used to measure growth. Further support for this argument came from a visit […]

The politics of dumping

By Malini Hariharan It was supposed to be a mere formality. More than a month back India’s commerce ministry formally recommended final anti-dumping duties on polypropylene (PP) imports from Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Oman. For duties to be implemented the commerce ministry’s recommendation has to be approved by the finance ministry. But this approval has […]

India contributes to Asian growth story

By Malini Hariharan Yes, the Indian economy is growing and propping up demand for all polymers. The blog had highlighted a few weeks back that polypropylene (PP) demand expanded by 13% during the April-July period and the expectations are that this rate will be maintained for the full year ending 31 March 2011. Raffia, the […]

Abandon Fear And Plan For The New Utopia

Michael Corleone once told his fiancee, “The old way of doing things is over – even my father knows that. In ten years time, the Corleone family will be entirely legitimitate” and ten years later he was still killing lots of people. So beware of what follows… Source of picture: www.i-italy.com   By John Richardson […]

Japan More Competitive Than You Might Think

 Tokyo at nightSource of picture: liveworldtours.com       By Malini Hariharan it is easy to write off the Japanese petrochemicals industry which has for long struggled to find a solution to the dual pressure of rising global competition and an anaemic home market. Japanese companies, once at the forefront of the Asian industry, have […]

Distorting The Outlook For 2011

    Source of picture: http://www.intentblog.com By John Richardson and Malini Hariharan THE view from a particular geography, grade of polyolefin or end-use application might be distorting the outlook for 2011. In China and India and other emerging markets demand growth continues to astound and even though the rates of expansion might have slowed down […]

Wrong Assumptions Drive Shipping, C2 Investments

The goat has been got    Source of picture: michaelscomments.wordpress.com   By John Richardson EARLIER this week we blogged on the 25 or so ethylene carriers that could be delivered into the shipping market by 2013 and the risk this poses to freight rates. Thanks to one of our readers, Mark Mirosevic-Sorgo – managing director of […]

Jump to page: