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Asian Chemical Connections

Qatar says there will be one more cracker

By Malini Hariharan Qatar has reconfirmed its commitment to build more petrochemical plants including a new worldscale cracker. At a ceremony to mark the start of construction of Qapco’s new ldPE project, the deputy premier and minister of energy and industry said Qatar was launching an aggressive plan to achieve optimal utilization of the country’s […]

Shell would like to build two MEG plants in Qatar

  By John Richardson An ethane shortage is slowing Shell Chemicals’ ambitions for building at least one cracker complex in Qatar, Ben van Beurden, executive vice-president of the company said last week. “Ideally, we’d like to build two crackers and two OMEGA process plants on the scale of this one here in Singapore, but at […]

GCC mood lifts despite worsening gas crisis

THE MOOD seems to have become a little more upbeat in the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) region of the Middle East thanks to the economic recovery. “The flow of foreign funds into the GCC came to a complete standstill in Q4 and the first quarter of this year, but in Q2-Q3 it reached all-time highs,” […]

The idiocy and hypocrisy of biofuels

I am having a go at the US here (see article below) – a pretty big target – but don’t worry, Asia is the next in line on this blog: the opportunistic, shallow and downright unpleasant palm oil-based biodiesel industry deserves similar treatment. As for ethanol, Rex Tillerson has a point. The CEO of ExxonMobil […]

Is ExxonMobil taking a gamble?

Will China relax the price controls that have led to wallopping great losses for domestic refiners, thereby justifying ExxonMobil’s Fujian investment? As we can see from this Bloomberg article, Exxon is pinning many of its hopes on these controls being relaxed. Does the US giant know something we don’t or are they taking a punt? […]

ExxonMobil turns a light shade of green

Rex Tillerson, chief executive of ExxonMobil, displayed a careful balance between supporting the oil industry and expressing concern over climate change in a recent speech.Does this indicate a shift in direction at Exxon post Lee Raymond, or merely a more cuddly and warm way of presenting unchanged policy? The reason why we are still dependent […]

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