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 […]
Asian Chemical Connections
China facing permanent demand destruction?
An interesting debate is emerging over the growth of the recycled polymer market in China. Sinodata, the Beijing-based consultancy, estimates that 5.8m tonnes of all types of recycled polymers were imported into China last year, an 800,000 tonnes increase over 2006. Five years ago, recycled imports totalled less than 500,000 tonnes. With domestic recycling also […]
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 […]
Basell predicts tough times for polyolefins in 2009-10
Paul Cherry of Basell gave an excellent paper at the recent ICIS Olefins Conference – Download file Paul offers some hints on how to survive the next downturn, and provides some sobering predictions on operating rates. I bet that after 2009-10, or whenever the next downturn arrives, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan will further restructure. […]
If you think you’ve had a bad day at work….
……spare a thought for whoever at Formosa ends up carrying the can for perhaps the biggest blunder in the history of petrochemicals. Any other candidates?
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