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Asian Chemical Connections

Rising Labour Costs Threaten US Projects

By John Richardson RISING labour costs will impact the viability of US petrochemicals projects as a result of the surge in overall hydrocarbons construction activity, an industry source told the blog. “Unless companies lock-in their labour costs fairly quickly, before the big surge in activity ahead of numerous cracker and derivatives start-ups planned for 216-2017, […]

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 […]

China PE Demand Weakness Continues

 By John Richardson LET’S put this into context: China’s polyethylene (PE) demand grew by 53 percent in 2008-2010. Growth during the first seven months of this year was just 1.7 percent over Januuary-July 2011, according to Global Trade Information Services (GTIS). And when compared with the same seven months in 2010 growth was flat, as the […]

June China Lending Disappoints

  By John Richardson POLYETHYLENE (PE) and polypropylene (PP) offer prices were reportedly on the rise across Asia earlier this week on increasing geopolitical tensions over Iran that led to a hike in crude prices. “Butene-grade linear-low density (LLDPE) offers have increased by $40-50/tonne,” said a source with a major producer. September LLDPE futures contract […]

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 […]

Demand Is The Thing

By John Richardson In the second of a series of three blog posts, we gauge the reaction of the market to last week’s sharp decline in polyolefin prices. Yesterday, we focused on the Middle East. Today, we interview a source with a Western-headquartered global polyolefin producer. He told us: “I have a dreadful feeling that […]

Saudi Worries About China Netbacks

    By John Richardson Here is the first of a three blog posts on what is happening in China’s polyolefins markets. Today, we look at the Middle East and tomorrow and Thursday we present the perspective of traders and Western-headquartered polyolefin producers. The series is in response to what we believe is a turning […]

Polyolefins And China Real Estate

  By John Richardson SOME polyolefin companies continue to present an optimistic picture of markets to investors. They point to positive factors such as renewed economic stimulus in China and a recovery in auto production in Thailand following last year’s floods. But, as we said yesterday, those involved in the day-to-day grind of trying to […]

Confidence And Petrochemicals

By John Richardson CONFIDENCE is a strange thing. It can be derived from solid reasons for optimism over the future or from temporary factors that can rapidly disappear. And what is the value of publicly-expressed confidence? Is it often politically motivated rather than being based on the genuine belief that the future holds tremendous promise? […]

Threat of Oil “Permafrost”

By John Richardson Saudi Arabian oil minister Ali al-Naimi on Tuesday did his best to calm the oil markets by arguing that the kingdom had met all its customers’ requests for crude, and was ready to raise output to full capacity of 12.5m barrels a day. “My only mission is to convey to you that […]

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