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Asian Chemical Connections

China Politics Before Economics

By John Richardson CHINA’S manufacturing activity did, at least, stabilise in September after hitting a nine-month low in August, according to the latest preliminary HSBC manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI). The PMI improved to 47.8% in September compared with 47.6% in August. Elsewhere, as the chart above shows, Eurozone and US PMI indices declined. The […]

Saudi Arabia To Boost Oil Output

By John Richardson SAUDI Arabia has offered its main customers in the US, Europe and Asia extra oil supplies until the end of the year as a result of concerns over the impact that expensive crude could have on the global economy. This follows last month’s call from the Group of Seven finance ministers for […]

Asia Faces More Asset Bubbles

Marc Faber Source of picture: http://www.cliffkule.com/2011_06_26_archive.html By John Richardson RECENT action by Western central banks will result in more hot money flowing into Asia, creating further asset-price bubbles. Last week, the Fed launched QE3 and the previous week, the European Central Bank launched its bond-buying programme. Equity markets in China could also surge by 10-20 […]

Asia Top Ten Chem Companies

By John Richardson SINOPEC’s remarkable rise in the petrochemicals business continued in 2011 as it jumped two places in the ICIS Top 100 ranking, compared with 2010, to finish second overall, behind BASF. This was the result of a 28.9% rise in chemicals sales in local currency and a 34.9% increase when sales were measured […]

China Leadership: Nobody Has A Clue

By John Richardson THE blog has spent a great deal of time talking to lots of people, and reading everything it can get its hands on, concerning China’s leadership handover and has reached one overwhelming conclusion: Nobody has a clue. The comforting, easy analysis is that the once-in-a-decade handover will be handled smoothly – and […]

Real Demand In The Real Economy

By John Richardson THE FED’S decision to launch quantitative easing 3 (QE3), a series of open-ended steps more radical than anything it has attempted before, is bound to drive petrochemicals pricing higher, in response to the surging cost of crude. But as a corporate planner with a US polyolefins producer told us yesterday, before the […]

“Good News” Over China Bank Lending

By John Richardson CHINA’S new local currency lending rose to 703.9 billion Yuan ($111 billion) last month, way ahead of July’s 540.1 billion Yuan. If a you are trader in the Dalian Commodity Exchange’s futures contract in linear-low density (LLDPE) you can take this ostensibly encouraging number, and premier Wen Jiabao’s speech earlier this week about […]

Failure Of Central Bankers

Source of graph: Reuters   By John Richardson THE Federal Reserve has got it badly wrong, and could compound its mistake by launching a third round of quantitative easing (QE3), warns Ruchir Sharma, head of emerging markets and global macro at Morgan Stanley. “The first two rounds of quantitative easing fuelled a commodity bubble, increased […]

China Investment Lowest Since 2002

By John Richardson THE chart above indicates the extent to which polyethylene (PE) price rises over the last few weeks have failed to adequately compensate for higher feedstock costs. Last week saw prices edge up by a further $10-40/tonne, according to ICIS pricing. “The majority of buyers have accepted higher September offers, but we know […]

China Stimulus Confusion

By John Richardson THERE was much talk last week about $158bn worth of new infrastructure projects in China that have received fast-track approval from the central government. But is this just a lot of noise to boost financial and commodity markets? Can anybody be 100 per cent certain that these projects are genuinely new, and that […]

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