By John Richardson THE THING is, as I discussed in my 9 February blog post, we simply do not have our hands on the data. Unless we improve our access to data, and greatly ramp up our ability to process and analyse the numbers, the petrochemicals industry will remain largely in the dark on demand. […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Assessing global PP prospects next year: seeing the simplicity through all the complexity
By John Richardson IT COULD be very complicated and yet, as the chart above indicates, it might instead by extremely simple. Here I use the example of polypropylene (PP), but similar complexities and one simplicity also apply to the paraxylene and styrene markets and all their downstream derivatives, as I shall discuss in later blog […]
Complacency, LLDPE and plastic waste: A collapse in demand
By John Richardson THE TECHNICAL people, those with PHDs in polymer science who have also spent years in application development work, will tell you it is simply impossible to find other materials that perform as well as LLDPE. Multi-layer LLDPE films are vital in applications such as wrapping food, they argue, thanks to excellent barrier properties. […]
Asian Petchems Profits Could Test Historic Lows In 2018
By John Richardson THE ASIAN steam cracker business has struggled to pass on higher oil prices as the above chart further underlines. As you can see, high-density polyethylene (LLDPE) injection grade spreads including selected co-products have slipped over the last few months. Spreads are a rough but still useful measure of profitability, and so tell […]
Measuring Crude Prices And Asian Petchems Profitability
By John Richardson YESTERDAY I posted this slide on LinkedIn, in response to a lot of concern amongst the more than 150 or so delegates at the 5th ICIS Asian Polyolefins Conference in Bangkok about the impact of rising crude prices on profitability. The chart shows spreads between naphtha costs, CFR China injection grade HDPE […]
Peak Oil Demand Opportunities For Petchems Are Being Over-Hyped
By John Richardson THERE is a lot of excitement about new petrochemicals feedstock opportunities resulting from the approaching end of the road for the internal combustion engine, the rise of the electricity battery car and the related arrival of Peak Oil Demand. Here is some of the logic which supports the notion that the demise […]
New Consensus Builds On Ethylene Supply Gap
By John Richardson THERE seems to be a new consensus emerging over an ethylene capacity addition shortage between 2013 and 2017. Many of the projects that are supposed to come on-stream during that period will either be delayed, or perhaps might even be cancelled, think a growing number of people. The future of some of […]
China Producer Price Deflation Continues
By John Richardson China’s factory-gate prices have fallen for 14 months in a row because of huge overcapacity in many industries, said the Wall Street Journal in this article. “Producer prices – a measure of prices of goods before they reach consumers – dropped 2.4% in April, the sharpest decline since October, paced by particularly […]
Polyolefin Demand Remains “Very Weak”
By John Richardson DEMAND remains “very weak” in China’s polyolefins markets, said a sales and marketing executive with a major Western producer. “I am having real trouble justifying higher prices to my customers, which are partly the result of naphtha having risen in line with stronger crude. What they cannot understand is why crude […]
It’s All About Shale Gas
By Malini Hariharan As expected, excitement around shale gas is running strong at the CERAWeek conference in Houston. But an element of caution is also visible with the majors appearing to be in no rush to finalise their investments. Shell is still a few years away from taking a final investment decision on a proposed […]
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