“Hello, my name is John Richardson. I had an accident, and I woke up in 1973. Am I mad, in a coma, or back in time? Whatever’s happened, it’s like I’ve landed on a different planet.” Before you think I’ve been at the methanol again, please follow this link to the fantastic BBC TV series, […]
Asian Chemical Connections
No more pessimism for a couple of weeks
You maybe relieved, on the day the Chinese government introduces measures to cool stock markets resulting in sharp fall in the Shanghai Exchange, that I am going on leave for a couple of weeks. Perhaps I’ll feel the sun on my back (unlikely as I’ll be visiting Scotland), come back with renewed optimism and not […]
Another Asian Financial Crisis, this time triggered by China?
After yesterday’s optimism, yet more pessimism. I remember 1997. Don’t underestimate the dange of contagion if China’s stock market bubble does burst – as the likes of Alan Greenspan are predicting
Is this the death of cycles?
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 […]
Life gets more complicated in the Middle East
In the old days all you had to do was propose an ethane cracker with PE and MEG downstream and you were away. But these days if you want to get feedstock, especially in Saudi, you need to offer something a bit different because of the drive to diversify to create jobs. This is a […]
Watch out for the Black Swans and dump the consultants
The former trader turned professor, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, in his new book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable warns against the danger of forecasting. Forecasting is, obviously, always based on what he know and not what we don’t know. A Black Swan, by the way, is an earth-shattering event we didn’t predict […]
Capacity build-up to force volumes west…even from Asia?
There’s been a lot of talk about the next wave of Middle East capacity being too great for Asia to absorb all the Asian volumes. Indeed, estimates abound over western growth being satisfied by the M-E over the next 3-5 years. But here’s a thought: what if China’s capacity build-up leads producers elsewhere in Asia […]
Bad news for polyvinyl chloride?
And also a whole host of other chemicals if this article on the excellent All Roads Lead to China blog is correct and incentives that have encouraged the real estate boom are removed. This serves of the dangers of overheating. What goes up must come down and, in this case, the real sector has a […]
Are coal-to-chemicals projects in China a load of nonsense?
Maybe, if the mystery blogger at the excellent http://www.theoildrum.com/ site knows what he is talking about. I’ve pasted in his arguments below. You need to register at this site, which takes only a few minutes, if you want to get into the wider debate about how energy issues will have a critical bearing on all […]
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 […]
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