Our 13th annual World Aromatics & Derivatives Conference takes place in Berlin next week. Jointly organised as always by International eChem and ICIS, it features a must-hear list of speakers: ExxonMobil: Europe Business Director Tim Stedman will give a global market overview Dow Chemical: Global Business Director Pieter Platteeuw will discuss the future for benzene […]
Chemicals and the Economy
ExxonMobil Antwerp to spend $1bn boosting diesel capacity
When the world changes, companies either change with it or go out of business. The market for stagecoaches was never the same once cars came along. And not many students use slide rules today, now calculators are available. Usually, of course, these market changes are slow-moving. So companies often fail to respond in the hope the old world […]
Oil will be left in the ground, as gas gains energy market share
The annual BP Energy Statistics publication is a treasure trove of information for anyone interested in global energy markets. One key area is the impact of today’s higher oil prices on consumption growth, as highlighted in the chart: It starts from 1965, and shows consumption growth for oil (red line), gas (blue) and total energy (green) Oil’s […]
The trend is your friend until it isn’t – part 2
“May you live in interesting times” is a Chinese proverb which has an alternative meaning as a curse. And the blog suspects this duality of meaning may start to make a lot of sense as we go through 2014. We have, after all, been in a very strange world for the past 5 years. Markets […]
ExxonMobil suggests $60-$70/bbl oil
The CEO of ExxonMobil, Rex Tillerson, has provided powerful support for the blog’s long-held view that oil prices are well out of line with fundamentals. He told the US Senate that: “If you said: ‘If I had access to the next marketable barrel, what would it cost?’, its going to be somewhere in the $60 […]
ExxonMobil sees Integration as key strength
The blog is a great believer is learning from the secrets of the world’s most successful chemical companies. Thus it was fascinated to read a report by ICIS’s Stephen Burns of a major speech by ExxonMobil (EM) president Stephen Pryor. Pryor warned that “capturing the benefits of downstream integration requires more than simply co-locating petrochemical […]
Aromatics face challenges ahead
Attendees had a fascinating two days at our annual European Aromatics & Derivatives Conference in Berlin this week. As always, it was co-organised with ICIS, and featured a strong list of speakers: Sven Royall, VP at Shell Chemicals, put forward an optimistic outlook for benzene derivatives. He argued that substitution of PS by PP had […]
Shell focuses on profitable upgrading of hydrocarbons
Business models have been changing over the past decade in the chemical industry, as illustrated in the above chart. Initially, the dotcom era began to put pressure on former ‘specialty businesses’, as customers discovered they were paying over the odds for technical support that was no longer required. The internet made it much easier to […]
Saudi Aramco to extend shale gas search
The summer has seen several reports of reductions in ethane availability to Saudi petchem plants. This seems to have been due to two causes: • Saudi has cut back oil production by a third (4mbd) in order to comply with its 8.3mbd OPEC quota at a time of reduced global demand. This has also reduced […]
Strong speaker line-up for European Aromatics conference
Our 9th European Aromatics and Derivatives Conference will be held in Berlin on 23-24 November. Co-organised as always with ICIS, it features a strong line-up of industry speakers including: • Shell Chemicals, Sven Royall, VP Intermediates on ‘What next for Aromatics’? • Ralf Kuhlmann (former Business Director, ExxonMobil Chemicals and APPE Chairman) on ‘European petrochemicals: […]
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