By John Richardson The remarkable rollercoaster that is butadiene, and its derivatives, continues. Although the synthetic rubber market for tyres in China appears to be strengthening, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) remains under pressure. And, in a reflection of what is a structurally extremely tight market for butadiene, LG Chem is talking about further reducing operating […]
Asian Chemical Connections
China’s Shale Gas Potential
By John Richardson THE shale-gas revolution, which, of course, is already well underway in the US, could also have major implications for petrochemicals in China. China has 1,275 trillion cubic feet of recoverable shale-gas reserves, according to the Energy Information Administration – more than the US. As a result, the Chinese National Energy Administration has […]
Depressed China Demand Continues
By John Richardson ANOTHER week and sadly a repeat of the same old story: Depressed polyolefins demand in China. Pricing did, however, increase – by $10-50/tonne in the case of polyethylene (PE) and $10-40/tonne for polypropylene (PP), according to assessments by ICIS pricing for the week ending 16 March. But our colleagues at ICIS […]
China Polyester Chain Weakens
By Malini Hariharan The polyester chain is feeling the strain of poor Chinese demand. Weak export demand and Chinese government policy are also impacting this sector, as is the case in polyolefins. A further factor behind the problems in the polyester chain is the fall in cotton prices, as fellow blogger Paul Hodges points out. Monoethylene […]
The Changing Landscape For Manufacturers
The New Normal involves three major transformations in the nature of consumer markets, which are: • The increasing size of the New Old 55+ age group in the West. • Too many young people struggling with higher unemployment. • Large number of people moving out of poverty in the developing world. These are the […]
World Bank Highlights China Risks
By John Richardson A NEW report by the World Bank on China, summarised on the slide below, supports what we argued in chapter 6 our e-book, Boom, Gloom & The New Normal: That without the success of efforts to reform the economy, the country risks a significant slowdown. Those reform efforts, detailed in the […]
China set for aromatics expansion
By Malini Hariharan China is preparing to bring onstream huge capacities for aromatics this year. Nearly 1.7m tonnes/year of toluene capacity is due to be added, writes Dolly Wu in the latest issue of ICIS Chemical Business. The major projects to keep an eye on are Dragon Aromatics (350kta), Jilin Petrochemical (350kt), PetroChina Sichuan Petrochemical […]
Methanol set for a strong year
By Malini Hariharan Chinese methanol demand growth in 2011 has beaten expectations thanks to rising requirement from the gasoline blending and methanol-to-olefins (MTO)/methanol-to-propylene (MTP) segments. Demand last year is estimated to have expanded by an impressive 30% to reach 26m tonnes, well above earlier forecasts of 19% growth, according to Ken Yin, the methanol editor […]
China coal-based MEG moves ahead
By Malini Hariharan China’s second coal-based monoethylene glycol (MEG) plant is due to start in the second half of 2012, reports ICIS news. The plant, located in Hebi, Henan province, will have a capacity of 250,000 tonnes/year and will be operated by Wuhan Engineering, Haiso Technology, and Hebi Baoma Group. The three companies successfully tested […]
A quick recovery for butadiene
By Malini Hariharan Asian butadiene prices are once again on their way up, rising over 20% in the last two weeks. Prices last week were at $1,900/tonne cfr Northeast Asia, up from a low of $1,500-1,600/tonne cfr Northeast Asia in the week ending 11 November, reports ICIS news. And offers have crossed the $2,000 mark […]
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