Quite possibly, yes, despite my instinctiive pessimism. Perhaps emerging markets such as China and India have reached such a critical mass that no matter how much capacity is brought on stream, it will be easily absorbed. Or maybe some disaster lies just around the corner. Who cares if you’ve made your money in the most […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Liveris defends strategy after a very tough few weeks
Imagine having to sack two of your senior management team after unauthorised takeover discussions. And then imagine just a few weeks later being forced to announce a 20% reduction in first quarter earnings. Andrew Liveris, Dow CEO (continuing our Dow theme – see below), is having a hard time of it. Mind you, life is […]
Dow fit with Reliance makes the most sense
Reliance is building the world’s first cracker that will be entirely fed by off-gas from its huge refinery expansion at Jamnagar. This technology has been used before, but never on this scale because nobody has had enough refinery capacity to run a cracker 100% on very cheap off-gas. The Dow strategy includes looking for cheaper […]
Don’t read this if all you care about is today’s C2 price
The International Energy Agency has further brought forward its forecast on when China will become the world’s biggest polluter to 2007 from 2010. Only three years ago, they were predicting not before 2025! Coal-fired power stations are big cause of rising greenhouse gas emissions in China, says the IEA. Will this result in a harder […]
Two optimistic views of the future
The eternal optimists at Nova Chemicals presented a very bullish view of olefins and polyolefins markets at their recent results meeting.Aaron Yap, trader with Integra, was also equally bullish at the ICIS Asian Polymers Conference in Shanghai last week – see Download file In short, Aaron believed that demand growth would hold up downstream while […]
Is ExxonMobil taking a gamble?
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? […]
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 […]
Oh my goodness, when will it end?
We heard about this rumour last year, but it’s emerged again – Reliance is now said to be in advanced discussions for acquiring Nova Chemicals. Nova’s Alberta-based cracker and PE production might be attractive because of pretty competitive, locked-in gas prices, but would Reliance really want its styrenics business – the asset that’s officially on […]
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 […]
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