By Malini Hariharan A power outage at Al-Jubail has forced crackers and downstream plants at Al-Jubail, Saudi Arabia, to shut down. ICIS news reports that all polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) plants at the site were shut yesterday. It is not yet clear which other derivative plants were affected. LyondellBasell has temporarily withdrawn its February […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Don’t Underestimate The Middle East
Source of picture: Wikimedia Commons By John Richardson THE theme of last week’s Gulf Petrochemicals and Chemicals Association (GPCA) conference in Dubai was “Moving Downstream, Creating Added Value and Sustainable Growth”. There is a huge effort underway in the Gulf region, as we have discussed before, to move away from only basic petrochemical […]
Saudi gas shortage and Iran gas price hikes
By Malini Hariharan The gas shortage in the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia, has been well documented with the situation expected to ease in the longer term once investments in new processing plants have been completed. But in a recent report on the emerging market for LNG, Facts Global Energy (FGE) points out that more […]
Middle East Still Confident For Now
By John Richardson Confidence among Middle Eastern petrochemical producers remains high because they obviously now that as long as oil prices do not collapse they will continue to make excellent money, said a chemicals analyst. The blog believes that there is a very strong chance that crude will collapse to as little as $25 a […]
Dow-Aramco Set To Start Al Jubail JV
By Malini Hariharan Dow Chemical appears to be ready to take a final decision on its huge cracker and derivatives joint venture with Saudi Aramco in Al Jubail, Saudi Arabia. Media reports in the last two days indicate that the $18-20bn project, first announced in 2007, has moved forward with a final decision likely to […]
Saudi Petchem Production Threatens Recovery
By John Richardson RISING oil production in Saudi Arabia has resulted in bigger volumes of polyethylene (PE) being delivered into Asia-Pacific markets, a source with a major plastics processor told the blog late last week. “Saudi Arabia has definitely, in my view, already raised PE production on more availability of associated gas. I am seeing […]
India PP dumping: The story continues
By Malini Hariharan The fight against anti-dumping duties (ADD) imposed by India on polypropylene (PP) exported by Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Oman is not yet over. Some of the major companies that face ADD have taken the matter to the Indian Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal and the issue is due to come […]
European PE, PP below Euros1,000/tonne
By John Richardson JOURNALISTS are often accused of exaggeration for the sake a good story, but it is genuinely no exaggeration to say that markets are in free-fall. Last week we reported on how European polyolefin pricing was on a downward spiral. For example, my ICIS pricing colleague Stephanie Wilson wrote in this article: “We […]
European Markets Weaken Further
By John Richardson THE dreadful state of European polyolefin markets became even more evident late last week as prices continued their declines. Discussions on further reductions in European olefin contract prices were also set to begin today. High density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) spot prices have now fallen by Euros80-150/tonne in June, […]
Chemicals Buying & The IEA Decision
By John Richardson CHEMICALS and polymer demand looks even less likely to be supported by “buying forward” following yesterday’s decision by the International Energy Agency (IEA) to release 60m barrels of crude into the market. Here is a bit of context first before we look at the implications of the IEA decision, which, along […]
Jump to page: