By John Richardson In theory there should be an additional 20-30m tonne/year of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) coming on-stream between 2008-2012, according to Petrochemical Corp of Singapore (PCS) – the Singapore Jurong Island-based cracker operator. This could lead to 5-10m tonne/year more LPG being cracked if the pricing incentives are right, added PCS in a […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Abandon Fear And Plan For The New Utopia
Michael Corleone once told his fiancee, “The old way of doing things is over – even my father knows that. In ten years time, the Corleone family will be entirely legitimitate” and ten years later he was still killing lots of people. So beware of what follows… Source of picture: www.i-italy.com By John Richardson […]
Distorting The Outlook For 2011
Source of picture: http://www.intentblog.com By John Richardson and Malini Hariharan THE view from a particular geography, grade of polyolefin or end-use application might be distorting the outlook for 2011. In China and India and other emerging markets demand growth continues to astound and even though the rates of expansion might have slowed down […]
Wrong Assumptions Drive Shipping, C2 Investments
The goat has been got Source of picture: michaelscomments.wordpress.com By John Richardson EARLIER this week we blogged on the 25 or so ethylene carriers that could be delivered into the shipping market by 2013 and the risk this poses to freight rates. Thanks to one of our readers, Mark Mirosevic-Sorgo – managing director of […]
European Polyolefins: The Luxury of Unintended Consequences
Another excuse for a Dylan picture – ref “Shelter From The Storm” Source of picture: www.israbox.com By John Richardson WEST EUROPEAN polyolefin markets remain tight thanks to the lingering effects of lack of spending on maintenance, several market sources have told the blog. “Companies were so short of cash from late 2008 that they began […]
Picking The Winners And Losers
Source of picture: ICIS By John Richardson ICIS has just published its Top 100 listing for 2009, which, not surprisingly, reveals the nothing-short-of devastating impact of the global economic crisis on chemical company financial performances. “Unprecedented operating and financial conditions helped drive annual sales for industry giants down more than 30%,” writes my […]
When Does Consolidation Become A Strategic Problem?
All our yesterdays… the ICI Runcorn site in its heyday Source of picture: Chesterchronicle.co.uk By John Richardson Yesterday’s blog post on Petronas illustrates once again how the state-owned giants, albeit in this case one that is about to undergo a partial IPO, are increasingly dominating the global petrochemicals industry. The history of the […]
The Unexpected Bonus For Polyolefins – In Summary
Every dark cloud has a silver lining… By John Richardson GLOBAL polyolefins markets are being kept very tight be a collection of what might seem like only temporary factors. But in the case of the butene-1 shortage, for example, (see below) this has been restricting linear-low density polyethylene (LLDPE) for more than a year. And many […]
US Polyolefins Confront Tough H2
Source of picture: www.usaembassy.com By John Richardson THE US poyolefins industry has enjoyed a remarkable recovery since the depths of the financial crisis thanks to major feedstock advantages in polyethylene (PE) and the rebound in the domestic economy. Booming demand from China also attracted substantial imports of PE and polypropylene (PP) from the […]
Fingers Crossed For No Double-Dip Recession
The Risk Of Exhausted Optimism Source of picture: http://www.thedigeratilife.com/blog/double-dip-recession/ By John Richardson Global polyethylene (PE) oversupply will be “challenging but manageable” over the next year-and-a-half provided there is no double-dip economic downturn, said Joe Duffy, consultant with DeWitt & Co. “My analysis suggests that if economic growth continues into 2011 at the […]
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