By Malini Hariharan Jurong Aromatics Corp (JAC), part of a rare breed of standalone aromatics projects, is finally seeing some progress. At a time when most new aromatic projects are integrated with refinery operations, JAC plans to build a condensate splitter and an aromatics facility to produce 800,000 tonnes/year of paraxylene (PX), 450,000 tonnes/year of […]
Asian Chemical Connections
A Downturn With Areas Of Persistent Strength
Tougher sanctions set to reduce Iranian exports Source of picture: amix.dk/blog/post/19116 By John Richardson I met a hedge-fund manager yesterday who wanted a straight answer as to why he felt that ethylene, propylene and polyolefin margins are holding-up relatively well, despite an apparent flood of new capacity. “The margins, particularly for polyproplyene (PP), are much […]
Long-term Shift In LPG Cracking Economics
Source of picture: the truth about cars By John Richardson WHEN my fellow blogger Malini Hariharan once asked a particularly unhelpful individual who used to track polyethylene (PE) markets what was going on, his only response was “conditions are volatile”. And so as you kick-off this fine and sunny morning (at least it is here […]
China to invest in Iran petrochemical projects?
By Malini Hariharan The recent sanctions are making business operations difficult for Iranian petrochemical producers. And just when questions were being raised about the prospects of the country’s numerous projects, news has emerged that Iran and China are on the verge of finalizing a pact which will see China invest money in Iranian petchems. The […]
Diminishing Returns From Middle East Projects
Downtown Riyadh By John Richardson As my fellow blogger Malini Hariharan wrote last week “the projects environment in the Middle East has irrevocably changed” and with it the rather glib and outdated assumption still being frequently made that building capacity in the region represents a licence to print money. First of all, as […]
The Unexpected Bonus For Polyolefins – In Summary
Every dark cloud has a silver lining… By John Richardson GLOBAL polyolefins markets are being kept very tight be a collection of what might seem like only temporary factors. But in the case of the butene-1 shortage, for example, (see below) this has been restricting linear-low density polyethylene (LLDPE) for more than a year. And many […]
US Polyolefins Confront Tough H2
Source of picture: www.usaembassy.com By John Richardson THE US poyolefins industry has enjoyed a remarkable recovery since the depths of the financial crisis thanks to major feedstock advantages in polyethylene (PE) and the rebound in the domestic economy. Booming demand from China also attracted substantial imports of PE and polypropylene (PP) from the […]
Adapting to a new environment
By Malini Hariharan The blog has been regularly highlighting the changes to the Middle East petrochemical environment where feedstock issues have been clouding prospects for new cracker projects and also affecting operations at existing plants. “We are trying to figure out at what price to offer gas or naphtha to ensure a project is viable […]
Dolphins And Taiwan Petrochemicals
The Indo-Pacific Humpback Dolphin Source of picture: townsvilledolphins.org By John Richardson AS Singapore forges ahead with its petrochemicals-expansion ambitions (it would be unwise for us to share rumours about potential new investors in cracker complexes on Jurong Island), spare a thought for the embattled Taiwanese industry. The environmental controversy surrounding the Formosa […]
Indian PP producers benefit from strong growth
By Malini Hariharan Indian polypropylene (PP) demand continues to remain strong with most end-use sectors showing good growth and it is local producers who are catering to the additional requirement. Polypropylene (PP) demand is estimated to have expanded by 13% to 809,000 tonnes during April-July, reports my colleague Prema Viswanathan on ICIS news. But import […]
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