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Chemicals and the Economy

Libya’s ethylene, propylene, methanol export position

Uncertainty over the Libyan situation is raising questions over the potential impact to its exports. The blog’s IeC colleague, Bob Townsend, has therefore done a quick analysis of the 3 main products that might be impacted – ethylene and propylene (blue columns), and methanol (green, right hand scale). As the chart shows, using data from […]

Asia’s olefin margins weaken vs Europe, USA

The ICIS weekly margin reports continue to provide essential reading for anyone in the petrochemical value chain. The above chart is particularly fascinating, as it highlights the significant differences between cracker margins on a regional basis over the past 2 years: • Europe (red column) is the clear winner over the period. Its margin bottomed […]

European ethylene at 82% operating rate in 2010

European operating rates (OR%) for ethylene averaged just 82% in 2010, according to APPE data this week. This meant there was no improvement over H1 OR%, suggesting the recovery from 2009’s 76% OR% has stalled. Of course, in terms of profitability, 2010 will have been a great year. The industry did its usual excellent job […]

Olefin ‘spreads’ remain volatile

Last March, the blog highlighted the major changes taking place in ethylene, propylene and butadiene prices versus naphtha. It also analysed them in ICIS Chemical Business in September. The above chart now summarises the 2010 outcome, using European prices to enable comparison over the last 30 years. It was a most remarkable year. The chart […]

Major changes underway in chemicals markets

This week’s ICIS Chemical Business includes the blog’s article on the changes taking place in global markets for ethylene, propylene, butadiene, benzene and paraxylene. These have a potential impact on buyers and sellers all the way down the various value chains. The article updates the blog’s major series on these issues in the summer, and […]

Propylene prices reach parity with ethylene

As promised on Saturday, today’s post looks in more detail at the major change taking place in the relationship of propylene to ethylene prices. When the blog joined the chemical industry in the 1970’s, propylene was often regarded as a disposal problem by many cracker operators. They ran their plants to produce ethylene, which was […]

Major changes underway in relative olefin pricing

Unprecedented changes are taking place in the relative prices of the main ‘building block’ petrochemicals. In turn, these could have major implications for downstream users, all along the key value chains. Today’s post looks at the changes taking place in ethylene’s relative price to the other olefins, propylene and butadiene. On Monday, the blog will […]

European propylene, butadiene, prices rise above ethylene

A remarkable thing happened this week in European olefin markets. Contract prices for butadiene and propylene were finalised for April/Q2 at higher levels than for ethylene. This has never happened before, in Europe or other regions. The chart, based on ICIS pricing data, shows how ethylene (blue line) has normally been the highest priced olefin. […]

Unscheduled cracker outages back to historical levels

The above chart is a real labour of love by ICIS’ Sue Royse. It comes from the indispensable monthly ICIS Worldwide Ethylene Plant Report. This tracks global operating capacity (except Russia/CIS), and details both planned and unplanned shutdowns. It highlights a number of key issues: • Total nameplate capacity was basically flat during 2008 at […]

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