By Malini Hariharan Shell Chemicals has become the latest entrant to a steadily growing list of companies looking at new cracker investments in the US. As we wrote about last week, Shell Chemicals told us in an interview at the Asia Petrochemical Industry Conference (APIC) in Fukuoka, Japan, that it was evaluating brown and greenfield […]
Asian Chemical Connections
China market problems persist
By John Richardson WHILE ethylene prices rose to a 14-month high last week on very expensive oil and the Shell Chemicals outage in Singapore, the ICIS pricing C2 margin report calculated a staggering $134/tonne fall in Northeast Asian margins. Rising naphtha is clearly not being passed on down the chain. Meanwhile, low-density polyethylene (LDPE) margins […]
No escaping the squeeze
By Malini Hariharan With naphtha crossing $1000/tonne yesterday Asian petrochemical producers reliant on this feedstock remain caught in a tight spot. Costs are continuously rising while market direction for key derivatives is uncertain. Ethylene and propylene prices are holding firm at around $1,350/tonne CFR Northeast Asia and $1,500/tonne CFR Northeast Asia respectively, supported by a […]
Polyolefin numbers look good
By Malini Hariharan Pic source: www.brandft.co.uk The blog is in undertaking the difficult task of collecting demand numbers for polyolefins across major Asian markets. Preliminary estimates show that demand growth has been quite healthy in the two major markets – China and India. Chinese polyethylene (PE) demand (measured as local production plus imports minus exports) […]
Looking West for support
By Malini Hariharan As Asian markets head towards a quiet week, producers are probably hoping that developments in other regions will support their efforts to raise prices once trading resumes after the Chinese New Year holidays in the first week of February. European producers successfully raised February ethylene contract price by Euro25/tonne while propylene moved […]
Letting supply lead the way
By Malini Hariharan Conventional wisdom suggests that it is best to build a plant where the market is. But can ready availability of material develop markets. Take the case of India. In an interesting presentation at India Chem last week, Mathew George of Indian Oil Corp (IOC), pointed that each of the top five polymer […]
Howling At the Moon And PE Price Discussions
Source of piicture: worldofstock.com By John Richardson CHINA’S surprise decision earlier this week to raise interest rates – the first rate rises since December 2007 – has badly dented sentiment in the polyethylene (PE) market, said a source with a Western producer. But estimates of price direction based on […]
China MTO/MTP – one more project starts
By Malini Hariharan Shenhua Ningxia has finally produced onspec propylene at its new 470,000 tonnes/year methanol-to-propylene (MTP) plant after starting trial operations last month. This marks the successful start of China’s first MTP project, which is also the world’s largest. There is one more due by the end of the year -Datang Power’s 450,000 tonnes/year […]
India contributes to Asian growth story
By Malini Hariharan Yes, the Indian economy is growing and propping up demand for all polymers. The blog had highlighted a few weeks back that polypropylene (PP) demand expanded by 13% during the April-July period and the expectations are that this rate will be maintained for the full year ending 31 March 2011. Raffia, the […]
Saudi Kayan commercial production delayed to end-2011?
By Malini Hariharan Sabic’s Saudi Kayan appears to be heading down the same road as other recent Saudi petrochemical projects. After starting up a 1m tonnes/year cracker and a mono ethylene glycol (MEG) facility, a local media report states that commercial production is likely only in late 2011 and not mid-2011 as was widely expected […]
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