Source: ICIS By John Richardson Reliance Industries is going boldly (no split infinitives here) where nobody has gone before: It is to build a cracker, which could eventually produce 1.6m tonne/year of ethylene, based entirely on off-gas feedstock supplied by its 1.24m tonne/year of refinery capacity at Jamnagar, Gujarat, India. Nobody has attempted anything […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Cotton In Uncharted Territory
By John Richardson POLYESTER producers, and their raw-material suppliers, enjoyed a huge boost to their profitability between October 2008 and March 2011 when cotton prices increased by 468 percent from 40 cents/lb to $2.27/lb. This led to polyester being substituted for cotton, and helped inspire a big capacity build in purified terepthalic acid […]
China Polyester Chain Weakens
By Malini Hariharan The polyester chain is feeling the strain of poor Chinese demand. Weak export demand and Chinese government policy are also impacting this sector, as is the case in polyolefins. A further factor behind the problems in the polyester chain is the fall in cotton prices, as fellow blogger Paul Hodges points out. Monoethylene […]
More PTA for India
By Malini Hariharan India trails far behind China in the polyester business but there is growing interest in new investments that also extends upstream to purified terephthalic acid (PTA). The latest entrant to the projects listing is Thai major Indorama Ventures which has signed an MoU with Indorama Synthetics (India) for an integrated PTA, polyester […]
Weak margins hit earnings
By Malini Hariharan It is the results season and numbers posted so far confirm that the last quarter has been rough with depressed demand, weak product prices and firm feedstock costs affecting earnings. Siam Cement Group’s EBITDA for the chemicals division dropped 25% in Q4 from the previous quarter, while sales revenue declined by 5%. […]
IOC Defers PX/PTA, Proceeds With Acetic Acid, Butene-1
By Malini Hariharan The blog continues with a review of Indian projects. State-owned refinery major Indian Oil Corp (IOC) has deferred its paraxylene (PX) and purified terephthalic acid (PTA) projects at Vadodara in Gujarat state, to post 2015. “The project is on hold because of commercial issues; we are looking at the total PX/PTA picture […]
Polyester still booming
By Malini Hariharan The blog has been listening to some interesting presentations on the polyester chain at the Indian Petrochem – 2011 conference in Mumbai. The global economic slowdown does not appear to have dampened prospects for polyester demand. “Demand for polyester grew by 5.6m tonnes last year which was atypical; we all thought that […]
PTA And PX Keep Sliding
By Malini Hariharan Asian spot prices for polyester raw materials continued to fall last week as concern on lack of buying support from the China market where concerns about the health of the global economy dampened sentiment. Purified terephthalic acid (PTA) prices declined to a 11-month low dragged down by weak demand and falling values […]
MEG bucks the trend
By Malini Hariharan There are some exceptions to the generally weak petrochemical markets seen in Asia these days and monoethylene glycol (MEG) is one such product. Spot prices have hit a 44-month high of $1,275-1,280/tonne CFR China and are expected to soon cross $1,300/tonne, close to levels last seen in January 2008, reports Judith Wang, […]
Cotton corrects; will polyester follow?
By Malini Hariharan After last year’s stunning rise, cotton prices have plunged 53% in the last four months from a 140-year peak of $2.15/lb on 4 March. Prices have fallen 38% in July with cotton for December delivery quoted at 98.63 cents/lb on the Intercontinental Exchange. The swift correction in prices is based on expected […]
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