Shelf-space to be in short supply again? Source of picture: www.zrdata.com ASIAN naphtha prices hit their highest level for more than a year yesterday – reaching $701/tonne CFR Japan for second-half December open-spec material on “improved market conditions”. Earlier this week we picked up more reports of bleak demand in styrenics and fibre intermediates that […]
Asian Chemical Connections
More Questionable Chinese Data Clouds The Picture
It seems as if Lex of the Financial Times is finally catching up with this blog by questioning the validity of some of the official data coming out of China. We take this as a compliment. In today’s column it talks about how the total for first-half Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth numbers for China’s 31 provinces […]
Qatar-Shell Sing Deal Feedstock, Investment Options
Singapore’s Jurong Island Source of picture: www.pcs.com Qatar Petroleum International (QPI) sees Singapore as a good base for expanding in to the Far East, said CEO Nasser Al-Jaidah yesterday after the announcement of the new partnership with Shell. QPI and Shell signed a series of agreements on Wednesday to jointly own 50% of Petrochemical Corporation of […]
Qatar Petroleum buys into Singapore petchems
Just picked up on the interesting news (not sure how big a deal this is) after attending one of those long interminably-long internal planning meetings. But on this occasion we at least were discussing something useful – not just the new colour for the carpet in reception. So why has Qatar Petroluem bought into Petrochemical […]
What the flipping heck is going on?….
…….and no trite Public Relations-speak answers, please!!! This is not me, by the way, (my computer is an older model) but the expression about sums it up www.scienceblogs.com No matter where you seem to turn these days, whether it’s to the refinery industry or to any chemicals production chain, the story is more or […]
Time to look inward
By Malini Hariharan (Malini is now joint blogger for Asian Chemical Connections) It pays to have a domestic focus and Reliance Industries has shown this again in its results for the first half of fiscal 2009-10. Its petrochemicals division delivered Rs43bn in earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT), a 23.8% growth over the same period […]
More evidence of China’s export rebound
Source of picture: Businesweek More evidence is emerging of the big rebound in Chinese exports resulting from government subsidies, including a Yuan now pegged to the dollar, soft and plentiful bank loans and export-tax rebates. More than 9,000 quality control inspections of goods set for overseas shipment took place in Q3 this year – […]
China Sept chemical import-surge data
More of the cheap stuff? Source of picture: www.thelocal.de Some of the China import data for September is now available – showing record-high imports of monoethylene glycol (MEG), ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA), polyacetal, polycarbonate (PC). “I have given up trying to figure this out. There is not sufficient accurate information anywhere to read a […]
China’s chemical imports up – again!
By John Richardson We don’t have the actual data yet (hopefully, we’ll be able to give you the numbers later this week), but…… ……China’s commodity chemicals and polymer imports “continued to amaze” in September with monoethylene glycol (MEG) shipments hitting an all-time high, said Jean Sudol, president of US-based International Trader Publications Inc (ITP). “Imports […]
China Export Gains Raise Sustainability Fears
Source of picture: www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23512037/ CHINA is making export gains at the expense of other higher-cost competitors that might not be sustainable because of reasons including rising trade protectionism and economic rebalancing. Chemical companies need to factor in this risk – and take into account how overall demand might merely be shifting location […]