By John Richardson LACK OF visibility over what the New Year will bring for the global chemicals industry is a key feature of just about every conversation held with industry executives at the moment. Perfect forecasting is, of course, always impossible, but with the Eurozone in deep crisis and even China potentially facing its own bad-debt crisis, […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Fresh US sanctions to target Iran petchems
By Malini Hariharan The US is looking to introduce fresh measures targeted at the petrochemicals industry. The specifics of the new sanctions are not yet available but the goal, says this report, is to bar foreign companies from doing business with Iran’s petrochemical industry by threatening them with being banned from U.S. markets. US companies […]
US PE Exports To Flood China
By John Richardson SPENDING time with your customers is always a good idea, but doing so seems to have become even more important during a very difficult year for China’s polyolefins business. The reason is a split between the fortunes of the top end of the business – the more differentiated grades of polyethylene (PE) […]
Oil demand set to slip, will prices follow?
By Malini Hariharan The International Energy Agency (IEA) has once again trimmed its oil demand forecast for 2011. And rising fears of a sustained global economic slowdown have also prompted the agency to cut the forecast for 2012. The IEA made it clear that expectations of ‘business-as-usual’ 4.5-5% global GDP growth were unsustainable. It cut […]
Cosy Platitudes Are Not Enough
By John Richardson DO you trust your government to always get it right? The answer in the case of the West is “of course not”, but in China’s case the publicly-expressed assumption still holds that the economy is being effectively managed. CEOs of chemicals and polymer companies might find it politically challenging to openly say […]
Clinging On To Vain Hopes
By John Richardson ANYONE clinging on to the hope that the weakness in the global polyolefin market is merely down to China going through a prolonged period of destocking could face a rude awakening. China’s polyethylene (PE) demand was down 4% in January-May this year, at 7.1m tonnes, compared with the same period in 2010. […]
Chemicals “Spin” Will Continue
By John Richardson THE reluctance of sell-side chemicals analysts to downgrade their forecasts should be severely tested by the Federal Reserve’s decision to downgrade its outlook for the US economy. US GDP growth will now be only 2.7-2.9% in 2011 compared with the April estimate of 3.1% to 3.3%, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke told a […]
A subdued end to a good year
By Malini Hariharan Petrochemical markets, with a few exceptions, will be closing the year on a quiet note. In polyolefins, buying activity in China has slowed down and sentiment remains weak weighed down by the Chinese government’s decision to hike bank reserve requirements. This is despite the recent rally in crude oil prices. Prices of […]
China Polyolefins Divorced From Fundamentals
A permanent separation? Source of picture: edu.com By John Richardson IT IS pretty easy to predict specific events that will cause declines in polyolefins pricing in China next year thanks to the big role that macro-economics now plays in setting the market. No longer do you need to mainly sweat over increasingly difficult polyethylene […]
Supercycle Claims Dismissed
By John Richardson THE Morgan Stanley Supercycle report, which we first blogged on last Friday, has created a big stir among the blog’s contacts. Click herefor a copy of the report RI_PETROCHEM_BLUEPAPER2010.pdf As we said in this ICIS news article on both the Morgan Stanley report, and one from Merrill Lynch which is in a similar […]
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