Spain saves the world economy Source of picture: www.fifa.com By John Richardson GLOBAL chemicals sentiment seems to be muddled and confused as the constant flood of positive and negative macro economic data. Take last week’s American Chemistry Council (ACC) weekly report, for example, which at that time gave a clear indication that […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Iran Petchems Hit By New Sanctions
Source of picture: irantrip1wordpress.com By John Richardson IRAN’S ability to further develop its oil, gas and petrochemicals sectors has received further major blows from new rounds of United Nations and US sanctions. One June 9, the UN approved a fourth round of sanctions on the country, including restrictions on financial transactions, a […]
China Property Sector Dangers Grow
Source of picture: www.chinadigitaltimes.net By John Richardson HOPES for strong China chemicals and polymer demand growth in H2 partly rest on government stimulus money for infrastructure projects compensating for a weakening real-estate sector. Whether its direct consumption of chemicals and polymers, such as the obvious polyvinyl chloride (PVC) – or indirect benefits […]
Mood Becomes Gloomy On Macro Dangers
Dear Readers – here is, hopefully, a hand summary of some of the key themes that have emerged over the past two weeks with some important additional data on imports and inventory levels in China – plus a rather unscientific industry confidence survey. By John Richardson The mood seems to have changed since the […]
Assessing Real Versus Sensationalised Risks
Source of picture: www.sierraclubgreenhome.com By John Richardson WHEN the bisphenol-A (BPA) health scare erupted a couple of years ago I rushed out and changed all my baby boy’s milk bottles to ones made from polypropylene (PP). “Did you know that there are concerns now being expressed in Europe about the plasticisers used in […]
German World Cup Win And A Double-Dip Recession?
Please, please not again… Source of picture: soccernet.espn.go.com By John Richardson The dreadful state of China’s polyethylene (PE) market will last for at least the next two months as a result of the overstocking we talked about earlier this week and poor demand, two polyolefin traders told the blog today. And […]
Report: ExxonMobil Qatar Project In Doubt
Up In The Air? Source of picture: www.marcdussault.com.blog By John Richardson QATAR Petroluem and ExxonMobil have started talks to dissolve their partnership for a 1.6m tonne/year cracker project in Qatar, according to an article published earlier this week by the Middle East Economic Digest (MEED). The project, due for start-up in 2015, would have […]
Ethylene Margins Plunge On PE Rate Cuts
By John Richardson THE steep decline in Asian ethylene margins – detailed in the chart below from the ICIS pricing weekly margin report – seems to be largely the result of the worrying state of China’s polyethylene (PE) market, which we discussed yesterday. “The Saudis have reduced their PE operating rates, resulting in an […]
China PE Market Falls Prey To The Speculators…..
….again By John Richardson THE sharp fall in polyethylene (PE) pricing in China is being blamed on speculative acquisition of cargoes by traders in March and a rise in local production. Apparent consumption (imports plus local production) is reported to have surged to 1.7m tonnes in March and 1.5m tonnes in April compared 1.3m tonnes […]
Chemicals Growth Story Gets More Complicated
A Velozzi plug-in hybrid Source of picture: www.zerauto.nl.blog By John Richardson Doom-mongers are claiming the end is nigh with the world heading for a double-dip recession. This is happening at the same as the optimists are talking of the world entering a new sunny upland of sustained exceptionally strong emerging-market growth, which will more-than […]
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