Will China relax the price controls that have led to wallopping great losses for domestic refiners, thereby justifying ExxonMobil’s Fujian investment? As we can see from this Bloomberg article, Exxon is pinning many of its hopes on these controls being relaxed. Does the US giant know something we don’t or are they taking a punt? […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Oops a daisy, here we go again
A boring topic to harp on about again I know, but this article from my colleague Nigel Davis from the Insight section of ICIS news supports what I have been saying for the past two years. The industry has overbuilt, and despite all the optimism engendered by project delays and probably cancellations in Iran of […]
What’s the point in building a plant if you’ve got nobody to run it?
No point obviously. As this report from Deutsche Bank Download file notes, the global skills shortage is not just in the west. In the engineering sector, and perhaps this applies to petrochemicals, Deutsche Bank claims that the huge outpouring of Indian and Chinese graduates is grossly exaggerated; and it adds that the quality of graduates […]
Could Pride Come Before A Fall?
This article from Reuters highlights the danger of overpaying for assets in the current India M&A frenzy.Perhaps its point about the overall of over-confidence is valid, especially given that previous deals were small scale. Other Indian companies, following Tata Steel’s lead, are starting to bid the big league. Integrating small acquisitions to add value is […]
The case for investing in Indonesia
Indonesia before 1997 had three cracker projects and huge demand growth. It was mentioned in the same breath as China. And, of course, then came the crisis. But this year GDP growth could be the highest since the crisis with the government in sound financial condition. The case for petrochemical investment is obvious as monomers […]
I told you so – Reliance firms up Jamnagar cracker
I had a feeling in my bones that Reliance was laying the groundwork for a major project announcement with its endlessly bullish forecasts about the Indian market (see my earlier blog ‘Is India about to crash?’). And low and behold, last week we saw the Indian major firm up its long-rumoured plans for a new […]
Is Indonesia poised to take off?
I can just about remember when Indonesia was talked about in the same breath as China – huge latent demand, lots of foreign direct investment and great natural resources. Then came the Asian financial crisis and economic ruin. But now, as this article from the Economist indicates, the government had paid off its debt to […]
Should we now discount Iran’s Olefins No 11, 12 and beyond?
The news that Iran is accelerating its uranium enrichment process brings the country closer to United Nations sanctions and quite possibly a military strike by the US or Israel. The No 9 and No 10 Olefins projects are far too progressed to be cancelled – the plants are virtually complete and the only issues remaining […]
Iran could stop exporting oil by 2015
Quota cheating, lack of investment in oil infrastructure and incredibly low domestic gasoline and other oil-product prices mean that Iran could be forced to exit oil export markets by as early as 2015, according to Roger Stern of John Hopkins University. The government would be under threat if local prices were jacked up. Cutting back […]
Reliance predicts a big India polymer deficit
The optimism seems infectious: Reliance’s market capitalisation breached the RS3 trillion level today, placing the giant in an elite group of only three Indian companies.And the petrochemicals major is predicting 12.59m tonnes of polymer demand in India in 2011-12 with local supply at slightly below 8m tonnes/year. The forecast big deficit is based on a […]
Jump to page: