By John Richardson SOUTHEAST (SEA) polyolefins demand grew by 15-20% last year in some of the region’s emerging countries, such as Indonesia, according to a source with a major global producer. Confidence is high as overseas money pours into super-hot property markets in Indonesia and Thailand. In Indonesia, property prices have risen by as much […]
Asian Chemical Connections
New Business Mindset Needed
By John Richardson THE global chemicals industry became used to healthy and steady rates of demand growth during the “Great Moderation” in the West, before the 2008 crisis. As fellow blogger Paul Hodges wrote in January of this year: “Executives could usefully spend time debating whether ethylene growth rates might be 4.2%, or perhaps 4.5%, […]
Indonesia’s “Great Moderation”
Graph prepared by The Economist By John Richardson INDONESIA has enjoyed eight consecutive quarters of 6% GDP growth and so – along with several other mainly domestically-demand driven Asian economies – is viewed as a haven of stability in an increasingly uncertain world. The country’s 2012 demand growth for polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polystyrene (PS), polyvinyl chloride (PVC) […]
China Textile Exports Decline
Source: http://www.economist.com/ By John Richardson RISING China labour costs are compounding weakness in the manufacturing sector and thereby, of course, damaging chemicals and polymer markets. The country’s garment exports fell by 0.2 percent in the first seven months of this year, compared with a 24 percent increase in January-July 2011, says the Association of Chinese […]
China’s Labour Complications
Source: Wang Feng, director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy in Beijing, from an article published in the China Economic Quarterly. By John Richardson ONE of the explanations for China’s disappointing petrochemicals demand growth during 2012 is that even where export-focused factories in southern and eastern China can find sufficient orders to run […]
BASF Highlights Changes In Growth
Martin Brudermüller Source of picture: BASF By John Richardson “THE struggle over China’s future direction seems to be harder fought than we had imagined,” said BASF vice chairman Martin Brudermüller last Thursday, in a German newspaper interview. “There are very intensive discussions being held in China about the direction the country should take. […]
A Polyolefin Trader’s Perspective
By John Richardson Word for word, see below what an Asian polyolefins trader told us yesterday: “This year has been absolutely terrible, the worst I can remember in eight years in this business, and even worse than 2008. There is just no demand out there. “There was supposed to be a recovery after the Chinese […]
Honam’s next expansion
By Malini Hariharan Honam Petrochemical’s plans for Indonesia appear to be progressing. Company sources told ICIS news yesterday that a feasibility study is underway for a $4-5bn petrochemical complex in Southeast Asia with Indonesia the most likely location. The study is likely to be completed by early 2013. Meanwhile, Indonesia media quoted senior managing director […]
PTT Global’s latest buy and Siam Cement’s Indonesia plan
By Malini Hariharan There have been no headline-grabbing deals but bit by bit PTT Global Chemical is extending its business beyond Asia and entering new product areas. Yesterday, PTT Global announced plans for a joint venture with Perstorp Holding France in toluene diisocyanate (TDI), aliphatic isocynates such as hexamethylene diisocyanate (HDI) and derivatives. PTT Global […]
Not All Plastics Are Born Equal
DSM’s Dyneema replaces steel in offshore ropes Source of picture: offshore-technology.com By John Richardson THE polyethylene (PE) shopping bags that get thrown away in their millions every day are some considerable distance down the value chain from DSM’s Dyneema ultra-high molecular weight PE (UHMWPE for short). Applications for Dyneema® include stopping bullets (it is […]
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