By John Richardson A SENSE of panic has gripped the fibre intermediates chain as a result of falling crude oil prices, an industry observer told the blog. “Nobody knows where the bottom of the market will be, which, to me, feels a great deal like the crisis in late 2008,” he said, “Prices are in […]
Asian Chemical Connections
A Call To Action
We are about to set out on a great journey as the world transitions to the New Normal. The reason for the journey is that the world economy has changed irrevocably as a result of the financial crisis and the demand changes created by the ageing of the Western BabyBoomers. There is no going back. […]
Chem Companies Face Funding Crisis
By John Richardson A collapse in the price of oil would expose petrochemicals producers, buyers and traders who have built- up stocks. They built up inventories because oil was on the way up earlier this year. And they were also encouraged to stock-up because of more confidence over the Eurozone, relative to Q4 last […]
Asian Operating Cuts Not Enough
By John Richardson ASIAN naphtha cracker operators have cut production in response to the exceptionally weak China market, according to ICIS. Yeochun Naphtha Cracker Centre (YNCC) has, for instance, lowered operating rates to 90 percent from 100 percent at its three crackers in Yeosu. South Korea, from the end of May. The total capacity of its […]
Global Economy Loses Suspension
By John Richardson ISN’T it interesting how when you talk to someone involved in a petrochemicals project, either publicly or privately, their project is very often sufficiently to the left of the cost curve to gain a winning advantage over competitors? Discussions are almost entirely about feedstock advantage, production and logistics efficiency and location etc. Thus was […]
China PE Demand Falls Six Percent
By John Richardson The 6% decline in apparent polyethylene (PE) demand in China from January to April this year, compared with the same periods in 2011 and 2010, underlines what market participants have been telling the blog for many months. The above chart also further emphasises how, in a weak market, the Middle East is […]
Feedstock Assumptions A Risk
By John Richardson THE feedstock landscape can change very rapidly as the shale-gas revolution amply demonstrates. But the assumption, right now, is that the landscape will not undergo any further radical changes. As a result, as much as 7.65m tonne/year could be added to US ethylene capacity by 2017. That would represent a 29 percent […]
PE Middle East Offers Keep Falling
By John Richardson POLYOLEFIN markets are not going to bottom out until August-September at the earliest, according to several producers and traders who the blog spoke to yesterday. And even if prices do eventually stop declining, confidence has all but disappeared that there will be any substantial recovery in either pricing or demand for the […]
No Big China Relief
By John Richardson Wen Jiabao re-emphasised at the weekend that China’s economic policy would be tweaked rather than radically overhauled because inflation, despite declining further in April, remains a major threat. Anybody hoping for a stimulus package on the scale of that which was introduced in late 2008 is therefore likely to be disappointed. And […]
APIC: A Sense Of Shock
By John Richardson ANOTHER theme that emerged from last week’s Asia Petrochemical Industry Conference (APIC) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, was the shock at the extent of the price declines in the key China market. In polyolefins, the slump in pricing has been the most pronounced during a period when the consensus opinion was that […]
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