Q1 saw near record margins for European petchem producers. And there was also a scramble for product, as buyers rushed to secure product ahead of feedstock price-related increases. But this remained a supply-led market. As the chart above shows, based on APPE data, Q1 production (red triangle) was just 5.1 million tonnes. It was slightly […]
Chemicals and the Economy
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 […]
INEOS plans refining/technology JVs with PetroChina
The Falkirk Herald, INEOS’s local newspaper in Scotland, has had to wait a long time for its ‘scoop’ of June 2009 to be confirmed. It had reported then that INEOS was in talks with PetroChina about the future of the Grangemouth refinery. As PetroChina noted at the time, “downstream business has a poor margin nowadays […]
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 […]
August highlights
Many readers have been taking a well-deserved break over the past few weeks. As usual, therefore, the blog is highlighting key posts during August, to help you catch up as you return to the office. August has been surprisingly busy: Force Majeure reports show worrying increase highlighted the worrying rise in force majeures, which may […]
China’s growth in crude oil demand slows
The Petromatrix report is currently a must-read for anyone seeking to understand what is really happening in crude oil markets. Its latest issue analyses China’s demand. It suggests this is not as strong as the bullish investment banks on Wall Street might wish. China’s refinery runs are certainly rising, as its new major capacity comes […]
Lower Western gasoline demand helps paraxylene
Paraxylene (PX) has been a great petchem success story over the past 30 years. This 4th post in the blog’s series looks back at its history, and discusses how its future may develop. It is hard to remember that back in the 1970s, DMT (dimethyl terephthalate) was the main polyester material. But the superior properties […]
Benzene develops security of supply issues
As promised, the 3rd of the blog’s series on the changes underway in the pricing of the major ‘building block’ chemicals, looks at benzene. The chart above shows its ‘spread’ versus naphtha, the key dynamic from a price and margin perspective. As can be seen, this was normally in the $80/t – $200/t range until […]
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 […]
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