Watch out for the charging bulls… Source of picture: sbynewsblogspot.com By John Richardson A FEW senior industry executives told the blog as long as a year ago that a petrochemicals supercycle was on the way as a result of lack of new supply post-2011 and booming emerging markets demand growth. The babble of […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Howling At the Moon And PE Price Discussions
Source of piicture: worldofstock.com By John Richardson CHINA’S surprise decision earlier this week to raise interest rates – the first rate rises since December 2007 – has badly dented sentiment in the polyethylene (PE) market, said a source with a Western producer. But estimates of price direction based on […]
No Going Back, But Don’t Expect Smooth Ride
Cloth nappies?….you have to be kidding Source of picture: babygavin.com By John Richardson IT IS the biggest transformation that the global economy has probably ever undergone, resulting in numerous opportunities and challenges for the chemicals industry as emerging markets continue to boom. The obvious opportunity is for those who can meet […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Saudi Arabia: The Implications Of Going Downstream
An example of how Lexan solar control IR sheets (made by SABIC Innovative Plastics) can be put to use Source of picture: SABIC By John Richardson SAUDI ARABIA is busy reshaping its petrochemical industry to reflect a drastic shift in priorities. Such is the change in the kingdom that commentators are going so as […]
Picking The Winners And Losers
Source of picture: ICIS By John Richardson ICIS has just published its Top 100 listing for 2009, which, not surprisingly, reveals the nothing-short-of devastating impact of the global economic crisis on chemical company financial performances. “Unprecedented operating and financial conditions helped drive annual sales for industry giants down more than 30%,” writes my […]
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 […]
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 […]
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