By Malini Hariharan The messenger’s prediction has turned out to be correct. Indian polymer producers have been forced to reduce domestic prices to match levels seen in the wider Asian market. The week started with a downward revision to polypropylene (PP) prices followed by cuts in prices of low density polyethylene (LDPE), linear low density […]
Asian Chemical Connections
China Power Woes Hit Chem Output
By Malini Hariharan and John Richardson The power crisis in China, highlighted in this post last month and yesterday, has worsened and is likely to affect economic output in the second quarter. More than 10 provinces, including Zhejiang, Hunan, Anhui, Jiangsu, Hubei, Sichuan and Henan, have been affected. Small and medium-sized petrochemical producers in the […]
Dow’s Liveris On The Mark On China?
By John Richardson Dow Chemical’s CEO, Andrew Liveris, was reassuringly upbeat about the state of demand in China last week when he described it as “quite robust” during an analysts’ call on the release of the company’s Q1 results And very significantly, given that we can trust that his comments were based on plenty of […]
India PVC imports set to grow
By Malini Hariharan The outlook for polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in India is bright was the conclusion at the end of last week’s Vinyls-India 2011 conference in Mumbai. Plenty of indicators were put up to justify this conclusion. India’s per-capita consumption of PVC is only 1.7kg as against 13.4 kg in the US, 9.2kg in China, […]
Chinese PVC demand set to reach 13m
By Malini Hariharan The blog was at the Vinyls India – 2011 conference in Mumbai which has attracted over 400 delegates interested in hearing about the Indian market. The country has emerged as a major importer of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) with nearly 650,000 tonnes of suspension grade imported in 2009-10. But no PVC conference can […]
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 […]
India’s petchem projects dilemma
By Malini Hariharan I have been doing my annual exercise of compiling major petrochemicals projects in India and as usual there not too many. Making a case for investing in a cracker in India has never been easy and the task continues to be difficult despite the demand growth experienced in the last few years. […]
Optimism as China returns
By Malini Hariharan The China market appears to have started the year of the tiger on a strong note. We are not yet hearing a roar but at least it is not a whimper. Pic source: Xinhua A polyolefin market participant says that traders have started making enquiries after the Lunar New Year holidays. End-users […]
India growth story – Part 3
By Malini Hariharan Some numbers today on Indian polyolefin and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) demand growth during April-December 2009. The strong growth trend noticed in the early part of last year continued and belied earlier expectations of a slowdown because of a drought over parts of India. PVC and polypropylene (PP) recorded the fastest growth rates […]
The Indian growth story – part 2
By Malini Hariharan A few weeks back I had written about robust demand growth figures emerging from the Indian polymer market. I will be posting some numbers over the next few days but ahead of that I would like to highlight what industry players have been saying on the major growth drivers and also developments […]
Jump to page: