By John Richardson SONG Wei, an environmentalist from Hunan province, told the BBC in July: “No more economic growth stained by blood. Under the new environment law, every factory has to be approved before it’s built. We’re putting an end to unregulated chaos.” (China introduced a New Environmental Protection Law in January). The cynics will, of […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Walking Away From Reality At Tianjin World Economic Forum
By John Richardson SOME of the world’s global business leaders don’t seem to get it. This is the only conclusion we can reach from their reported reaction to Li Keqiang’s opening speech at the World Economic Forum in Tianjin, China, yesterday. “Premier Li Keqiang failed to offer global business leaders any fresh solutions to the […]
Paying For China’s Infrastructure
By John Richardson NEW infrastructure projects in China (see above chart from Rio Tinto) might deliver a boost to chemicals and polymer demand growth in Q4 this year and into 2013. But doubts are being expressed about whether some of these projects can be funded, given the build-up of bad debts in China’s financial system […]
SABIC And Sinopec’s Trinidad Partnership
By Malini Hariharan More news has emerged on the Trinidad methanol and methanol-to-olefins (MTO) project covered by the blog last week. Chinese major Sinopec is likely to be SABIC’s partner for the $5.3bn project. The two companies are in negotiations with the Trinidad government, said SABIC. With Sinopec as a partner, SABIC would gain access […]
Polymers start the year on a robust note, but how long will it last?
By Malini Hariharan and John Richardson Expect the unexpected and you probably stand a good chance of making money in the polymer market. Defying expectations of a slowdown in demand ahead of the Chinese new year in February markets have started 2010 with a bang – material is short and prices are steadily moving up. […]