By John Richardson THE blog listened to an interesting discussion yesterday, on the first day of the 2nd ICIS World Polyolefins Conference in Berlin, during which plastics processors tackled the perennial issue of volatility. They complained that: *Trying to build long-term relationships with producers is difficult because polymer sales guys only stay in their jobs […]
Asian Chemical Connections
APIC And Demand
Just an anomaly? Source: American Chemistry Council By John Richardson FEEDSTOCK advantage is, of course, crucially important, but so is demand. And yet the only subject that most people wanted to talk about in any depth at last week’s Asia Petrochemical Industry Conference (APIC) appeared to be how to achieve feedstock advantage. Why? […]
Post-War Fabric Of Europe Under Threat
The excellent article below from Paul Taylor at Reuters, which with his permission we publish in full below, describes how the European crisis is far from over, despite the hopes of financial markets following Mario Draghi’s pledge “to whatever it takes” last year. The crisis is, in fact, getting worse. 18 March 2013, 20:39:26 | Paul […]
China Higher-Value Processors Exert More Pressure
By John Richardson ALTHOUGH overall Chinese polyethylene (PE) demand, as we feared would happen, has fallen back to Q1-Q3 2012 levels (current sentiment suggests that it could be even lower), higher-value segments of the industry continue to do very well. It is, therefore, worth reflecting again in more detail on comments made by a source […]
Chemicals In A Vicious Cycle
By John Richardson OIL prices could fall to as low as $35-40 a barrel or might slip no further than $60-70 a barrel, depending on which analyst you belief. And we know of one global polyolefins company that is working on the assumption that crude, both West Texas Intermediate and Brent, will trade […]
Greek Election Results Change Nothing
By John Richardson HOW long will the relief rally last in oil and equity markets following the Greek election results? Sadly, the answer is not long, because difficult discussions lay ahead for the New Democracy party as it tries to form a government. Greece, also, remains broke and so the Euro crisis is far from […]
Canton Trade Fair Disappoints
By John Richardson THE total value of export orders at the latest Canton Trade Fair, which finished this weekend, declined by 4.8% compared with the previous event in October last year. This is the first decline in the value of orders at the bi-annual fair since May 2009, when the world was in the […]
A Polyolefin Trader’s Perspective
By John Richardson Word for word, see below what an Asian polyolefins trader told us yesterday: “This year has been absolutely terrible, the worst I can remember in eight years in this business, and even worse than 2008. There is just no demand out there. “There was supposed to be a recovery after the Chinese […]
The Planning Process Gets Harder
By John Richardson EARLIER this week we talked about the possibility that China might devalue the Yuan rather than allow it to further appreciate. We have since been told by a senior chemicals industry source that this is exactly what the Chinese government is evaluating in case the worst of possible outcomes occurs – the […]
China’s Leaders Are Boxed In
By John Richardson IT seems inevitable that petrochemical markets will respond positively to the Chinese government’s decision to reduce bank-reserve requirements by 50 basis points. There will quite likely be a relief rally in the Dalian Commodity Exchange’s futures contract in linear-low density polyethylene (LLDPE) and a recovery in physical prices. But lost demand is […]
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