Gillian Tett: Worth Listening To Source of picture: afponline.org By John Richardson The excellent journalist Gillian Tett, whose book on the financial crisis – Fool’s Gold is well worth a read – again hits the nail on the head in this piece in today’s Financial Times. She says that if the whole of […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Singapore Value-add Chem Announcements Expected Soon
Ben van Beurden of Shell Chemicals Source of picture: Shell.com By John Richardson SINGAPORE looks set to soon make some further announcements on high-value investments downstream of the new Shell Eastern Petrochemical Co (SEPC) cracker. The complex – which comprises an 800,000 tonne/year mixed-feed cracker and a 750,000 tonne/year OMEGA process monoethylene glycol […]
China Polyolefins – A Bad Case Of Indigestion
By John Richardson IT IS always dangerous to assume that the future will be exactly the same as the past – a big lesson from the recent financial crisis. But so seems to have been the assumption amongst China’s polyolefin traders late last year as a close look at import statistics for December and January, […]
Dealing With The Middle East Logistics Challenge
Singapore’s container port Source of picture: www.gcaptain.com By Malini Hariharan and John Richardson A big challenge facing many companies that have built large polymer plants that are located far from key markets is how to move product most efficiently. These facilities have been built to take advantage of competitive feedstocks in regions such as […]
China Polyolefin Buyers Smell Blood……
…..but time to party for some thanks to re-exports to Brazil Source of picture: edgsgonesouth.com By John Richardson It’s a funny old world – or so it seems in poylolefins at the moment as traders re-export resin from China to Latin America and elsewhere. “I phoned up a trader in China the other day […]
Asian propylene pricing heading for “a crash”
By John Richardson PROPYLENE pricing is heading for “a crash” in Asia as a result of spot supply increasing by around 20,000 tonne/month, a senior industry source has told the blog. Shell Chemicals will have a surplus 440,000 tonne/year of C3s from its Singapore cracker – in the process of starting up right now – […]
SEA Chemicals Need To Learn From The Past
By John Richardson THE whinging is getting almost unbearable in Southeast Asia over the Asean-China Free-Trade Agreement (ACFTA). The deal was under discussion for EIGHT years and yet chemicals and polymer producers and customers seem to have left it until after-the-fact to start raising objections. Indonesian industry association representatives have gone as far as to […]
Action in the propylene market
By Malini Hariharan Just when Asian propylene prices started easing comes news of disruptions in production and price hikes in the West. Propylene availability in Europe was hit after a strike by Total’s refinery workers early in the week resulted in the closure of 36% of France’s C3 capacity. This forced Total to declare force […]
Ethylene Margin Feast On Borrowed Time
By John Richardson A remarkable feature of early 2010 has been the tremendous margins enjoyed by Asian ethylene producers. Profitability in February, up until the end of the second week, had been the strongest since 2001, according to my colleagues who produce the weekly Asian Ethylene and Polyethylene (PE) Margin Reports. We will provide some […]
Corrected:Asian Naphtha-Ethylene Spreads Touch 2007 Levels
We should have originally written ‘integrated low-density polyethylene (LDPE) in paragraphsix, but instead wrote linear-low density PE (LLDPE). It’s now been corrected and apologies for the error – we will be buying some better glasses (less of this “we” – it’s actually “me”!) By John Richardson The rise in ethylene prices to what ICIS pricing says is […]
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