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Asian Chemical Connections

The “Why” Behind Sinopec’s Investment Freeze

By John Richardson SINOPEC has announced that it will halt some of its new petrochemicals investments. This could involve the postponement of up to three cracker projects with a combined ethylene capacity of 2.8m tonnes/year, according to this excellent story from my ICIS colleague, Fanny Zhang. The company confirmed that the 1m tonnes/year Qingdao Petrochemical […]

China Turns A Corner On Shale Gas

By John Richardson CHINA has more shale gas reserves than the US, and, like the US six years ago, confronts a dangerous reliance on imported energy. But the development of the shale industry in China is being hampered by water shortages,  poor intellectual property rights protection leading to lack of access to cutting edge US […]

Sinopec And The Blog’s Favourite Triangle

By John Richardson ONE of Sinopec’s subsidiaries, Shanghai Petrochemical, has weighed-in to the debate over US shale gas by warning that cheap petrochemicals imports from the States could erode the whole of China’s competitiveness. “We can’t tell how severe the blow will be, but it will pose a serious challenge, and the entire industry will […]

Sinopec A Litmus Test For Reform

By John Richardson CHINA’s new leaders are under increasing pressure to do something about the dreadful pollution that blights the lives of hundreds of millions of people. One Shanghai resident told the blog, “The air quality is so bad here I have taken up smoking again. I figured that as my health was already in […]

China’s Environmental Balancing Act

A woman wearing a mask looks across the Pudong on 16 January this year Source of picure: Zuma/Rex Features   By John Richardson A DISPUTE between state-owned refiners Sinopec and PetroChina and environmental regulators serves as a good example of the difficulties China faces in reforming its growth model. The debate about the environment is […]

US Support For Big China Shale Gas Challenge…..

……..Significant Commercial Production “At least Ten Years Away” By John Richardson A US-China Shale Gas Training Programme has been launched by the independent White House agency, the US Trade & Development Agency (USTDA). An initial $378,000 will be invested to enable the US industry to travel to China and “help introduce Chinese energy sector officials […]

Tackling The SOEs

“The state advances as the private sector retreats…” The table below shows the size of China state-owned enterprises versus some other corporate giants. Source of table: The Economist. ICBC is the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.    By John Richardson In the second of our series of blog posts ahead of this week’s 18th […]

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