By John Richardson ALL of yesterday’s excitement about the US overtaking Saudi Arabia and Russia by 2017 to become the world’s biggest oil producer – and exceeding Russia to become the world’s biggest gas producer by 2015 – needs to be taken with a very large pinch of salt. The release of the International Energy […]
Asian Chemical Connections
The US Shale Gas Boom Will End
Don’t follow the herd… By John Richardson ISN’T it amazing how we keep getting caught out by the unexpected, from the global financial crisis to China is entering a period of much-lower growth? No, not really. As long as we keep being driven by the short attention-span of financial markets and the demands of quarterly […]
World Heading For L-Shaped Recovery
Mr Bernanke, please take note By John Richardson The recovery is always six months away and so while most people have written-off the first half of next year, the hope is that by H2 everything will be back to normal. But as fellow blogger Paul Hodges points out in this video, which he further underlines […]
US Set To Adopt A Golden Rule
By John Richardson ONE of the golden rules of petrochemicals is “always run hard if you have the feedstock advantage”. As a result, the US is said to have been a little frustrated by a series of operating problems that have constrained their average capacity utilisation to around 80% in 2012. “If they had been able to they would […]
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, […]
Nova Chems Company Of The Year
By Nigel Davis The ICIS Company of the year award goes to NOVA Chemicals, a company that has risen phoenix-like from near bankruptcy to produce a healthy set of financial results in 2011. Underlying its performance is the backing of a strong investor – the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) – canny management […]
Uncertainties Over US Gas Pricing
By John Richardson NOBODY saw the shale gas technological breakthroughs coming and thus the revival of the US petrochemicals industry took everybody by surprise. Today the accepted wisdom is that the US industry will remain a license to print money for many years to come. But as we have discussed before, the substantial amount of […]
China Coal-to-Olefins Ambitions
By John Richardson SOME 10-15m tonne/year of coal-to-olefins (CTO) capacity in China is being considered, has already received approval or is in the planning stage, according to a report by Woori. “Major coal companies, petrochemical companies and foreign petrochemical players are all known to be planning CTO plant construction in China’s north western regions,” says the South […]
Global Polyethylene Margin Picture
By John Richardson ASIAN high-density polyethylene (HDPE) margins have improved in June and July compared with the rest of the year, according to the above chart from the ICIS Weekly PE Margin Report. But the overall year-to-date trend illustrates how the industry has lacked pricing power as a result of persistently weak Chinese demand. August […]
US Chemicals Still Behind 2007
By John Richardson US chemicals production remains way below its pre-crisis 2007 level but production in Asia-Pacific, after a brief blip in 2009, continues to soar, according to these charts from the American Chemistry Council. Whereas US producers have carried out few capacity expansions since 2007 and are runnning existing plants at lower operating rates, […]
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