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Asian Chemical Connections

Some important new petchem trends

To keep you updated on what we believe is happening in petrochemicals, here are some important recent trends: *Futures markets in China are playing an increasingly important role in influencing pricing in polyolefins, methanol and PTA. Trading volume on the Dalian Commodity Exchange (watch out for Focus piece due out on ICIS today) for LLDPE […]

Short-term gain could equal long-term pain

In the depths of the Asian financial crisis an American industry executive said, “I don’t know why Korea has a petrochemical industry. It should be just shut down.” There were also widespread complaints over “soft” government-directed loans that supported Asian companies through the difficult times of 1997-98. How the tables have turned, according to another […]

I don’t want to gloat but I told you so….

It looks like olefins and aromatics prices are on the retreat in Asia as I predicted earlier this month. I only feel slightly smug because it seems obvious that naphtha was a big driver – and that markets were being talked up by producers desperate to recover monumental Q4 losses. There will be lots more […]

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