By John Richardson YESTERDAY’S fractious OPEC meeting – where members were unable to agree on a proposal by the four biggest members to raise output – may not necessarily be good news for petrochemicals. For a long time the industry has worried about Saudi Arabia’s potential to raise crude output from approximately 8.5m barrels a […]
Asian Chemical Connections
China Polyolefin Demand Growth Flat In 2011
By John Richardson POLYOLEFINS demand growth in China is likely to be flat in 2011 over last year, a senior industry executive and a consultant have told us. “I am quite pessimistic and don’t see the Chinese government winning the battle to bring inflation below 4% during this year (its target) and so the credit restrictions […]
HSBC: Speculation Adds $30 To Oil
By Malini Hariharan GROWTH in China and other leading economies has slowed and oil prices have slipped but analysts are predicting strong prices for the rest of 2011 and 2012. Their reasoning is based on continued speculative activity in this commodity and geopolitical risks in the Middle East . HSBC’s recent report on this subject estimates […]
LDPE Re-investment Case Gets Harder
By John Richardson JUST when you thought it might have been safe to push really hard for building more low-density polyethylene (LDPE), prices have started to decline. European prices, for example, recently slipped by Euros30/tonne with Asia down by $20-50/tonne last week, according to ICIS pricing. Overall polyolefin prices are, of course, on the decline – […]
Supply Constraints Should Mean A Healthy China
By John Richardson THE extent of the weakness in China ‘s polyolefins market has become more apparent as a result of reports that a much-anticipated increase in Middle East production hasn’t happened. Back in February, oil production in Saudi Arabia had been raised to 8.9m barrels a day from around 8.5m barrels in January, a […]
Middle East Petchem Producers Feel China Slowdown
By John Richardson MORE evidence has emerged of a slowdown in demand for polyolefins in China following the sharp decline in March imports. The Middle East is now feeling the pinch as a result of the impact of inflation and the reduced availability of credit. “I visited a propane dehydrogenation (PDH)-to-polypropylene (PP) producer in Saudi Arabia last week. The […]
Broad Commodities Retreat Hurts Chemicals
By John Richardson WE hate to say we told you so but the 15 per cent fall in oil prices last week – the steepest one-week decline in two-and-a-half years – was evidence of growing concern over the health of the global economy. And as we predicted on 12 April, last week saw a broad sell-off […]
LyondellBasell Plans US Capacity Additions
Jim Gallogly Source of picture: ICIS By John Richardson LYONDELLBASELL has joined the list of US producers that have disclosed ethylene expansion plans as a result of low-cost ethane and the belief that we are heading towards an up-cycle. Jim Gallogly, LyondellBasell’s CEO, said during an earnings call on Monday that debottleneckings are […]
Cotton Support For Fibre Intermediates Declines
By John Richardson RISING cotton prices might well have been the single-biggest factor on the strength in the synthetic textiles chain for the last year. Other major factors have obviously been the surge in crude and supply constraints in both paraxylene (PX) and purified terephthalic acid (PTA) – but certainly not in mono-ethylene glycol (MEG)! […]
Petchems Could Enjoy Abundant Naphtha
By John Richardson THE refining industry enjoyed a golden era before the global economic crisis thanks to a booming economy and gasoline shortages caused by Hurricane Katrina. Inevitably, therefore, as is so often the case with commodity industries, too much new capacity was planned that came on-stream at the worst possible time. But recently some […]
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