By John Richardson A LOT of stock market excitement, and perhaps a recovery in petrochemicals prices (more next week when everyone is back in action), has greeted the release of China’s purchasing managers’ indices for December. The official PMI held steady at 50.6%, while the final HSBC PMI came in at 51.5%, the highest reading in […]
Asian Chemical Connections
US Support For Big China Shale Gas Challenge…..
……..Significant Commercial Production “At least Ten Years Away” By John Richardson A US-China Shale Gas Training Programme has been launched by the independent White House agency, the US Trade & Development Agency (USTDA). An initial $378,000 will be invested to enable the US industry to travel to China and “help introduce Chinese energy sector officials […]
Northeast Asian PE Margins At Record Low
By John Richardson THE above slide shows how bad the polyethylene (PE) market has been in 2012. Based on data from the ICIS pricing Asian PE Margin Report, it shows how Northeast Asian high-density (HDPE) integrated variable cost margins have fallen to their lowest level since 2000. This was supposed to be a good year, […]
China’s Risky New Lending Surge
By John Richardson BANK lending is once again surging in China as politicians try to shore up their support ahead of the leadership transition. “The central government has approved up to 7 trillion yuan ($1.2bn) for infrastructure investments since May to spur growth,” wrote the China Daily. This represents 15% of GDP. Real-estate loans in […]
China Reformer Sidelined
By John Richardson AN assumption is that economic reformers will win control of China’s Politburo after the once-in-a-decade leadership transition is out of the way (China’s new set of leaders are set to be announced during the 18th Party Congress, which begins on 8 November). The blog believes that this assumption needs to be rigorously challenged, […]
Morgan Stanley Turns Bearish
By John Richardson AN interesting new report from Morgan Stanley underlines what we have been hearing about Chinese chemicals demand. The investment bank writes: “We returned to China and offer a revised message versus our trip last year. Instead of a ‘pause” in growth’, we now see a structural slowdown. China is in the midst […]
China PE Demand Weakness Continues
By John Richardson LET’S put this into context: China’s polyethylene (PE) demand grew by 53 percent in 2008-2010. Growth during the first seven months of this year was just 1.7 percent over Januuary-July 2011, according to Global Trade Information Services (GTIS). And when compared with the same seven months in 2010 growth was flat, as the […]
Recovery Always 3-6 Months Away
By John Richardson THE recovery always seems to be three to six months away. Thus, as hope fades for a Q4 economic rebound in China, a marketing and sales executive with a major European speciality chemicals player told the blog earlier this week: “Everything will be fine in the New Year once China’s new leaders […]
China Coal-to-Olefins Strong Economics
By John Richardson THE economics of China’s coal-based olefins industry are favourable when measured on a cash cost basis in a high oil-price environment, as the slide above from the Singapore-based consultancy Methanol Market Services Asia (MMSA) illustrates. But even when oil prices decline, which occurred in May this year, swinging cash costs back in […]
Asian LDPE Margins Reach New Low
LDPE margins in 2012 By John Richardson NORTHEAST Asian integrated low-density polyethylene (LDPE) margins keep plunging new depths. The margins were at their most negative since ICIS records began in 2000, according to the ICIS Asian PE Margin Report for the week ending 10 August. And the report for the week ending 17 August said that they had fallen even […]
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