The blog is delighted by the interest being shown in its White Paper ‘Budgeting for a New Normal’ and the recent Mid-Year Update. Almost 7000 copies have now been downloaded. Discussions are also underway with ICIS about producing a new White Paper in Q4, to accompany the blog’s annual Budget Outlook post in October. If […]
Chemicals and the Economy
Honam’s Malaysia buy opens SEA market share battle
Over-capacity is going to be a major issue for the petchem industry over the next few years. Asian producers, in particular, are likely to be worst impacted. The reason is that they have relied on exports to China taking up to 50% of their production. But now China’s own production is ramping up, reducing the […]
Petchem supply/demand enters the New Normal
The blog’s major series this week has focused on the changes that seem to be taking place in markets for the petchem ‘building block’ products, particularly ethylene, propylene, benzene and paraxylene. These changes in relative price and availability are of vital importance to a wide range of downstream chemical products. They may well prove to […]
A Year of Two Halves
Two months ago, on 8 May, the blog suggested that ‘Sell in May and Go Away” was likely to prove good advice this year. Since then, most major stock markets have fallen dramatically, with the S&P 500 down by 9%. The proximate cause of the blog’s pessimism then was the onset of the Greek/eurozone crisis. […]
US auto sales slip as employment growth weakens
Each US auto sale is worth $2973 to the chemical industry, according to American Chemistry Council research. And as the chart above shows, current sales remain well below the levels seen in the Boom years. In June 2007, for example, 1.5m autos were sold (black line), in line with 2006 and 2006 performance. They were […]
Russia’s chemical output begins to improve
In May last year, the blog was hopeful that the major decline in Russian chemical production might start to reverse. And recent ACC regional production figures have indeed shown a welcome improvement in Central and Eastern European output, which was badly hit by the 2008-9 collapse. Once again, the blog is grateful to Sergei Blagov […]
Global chemical recovery starts to slow
At the mid-year point, its interesting to look at the performance of the total chemical industry, including pharmaceuticals. The chart, from the American Chemistry Council, shows global demand has now recovered to 2008 levels. Pharma is more recession-proof than other parts of the industry, as people still become ill and need treatment. In terms of […]
EU auto sales fall further 9% in May
The blog has been out and about in recent days, visiting some of the major European chemical companies. Most continue to see strong order books. In normal circumstances, this would lead to considerable confidence about the outlook for the rest of the year. However, there are increasing fears, as Nigel Davis has noted in ICIS […]
Dalian polymer volumes remain under pressure
China’s Dalian futures market has been the global centre of speculative polymers trading for over a year. It traded an amazing 80 million tonnes of LLDPE in April 2009, as excitement built. And volume (blue line) remained positive on a year-on-year basis until January. But since then, comparisons have been negative: • February’s volumes were […]
Asian polymer prices and margins begin to fall
A month ago, Nigel Davis called attention in his ICIS Insight column to the alarming fall taking place in US ethylene values. He noted that “inventories seem to have filled“, and presciently concluded that “buyers have been on the look-out for the turn and, by all accounts, expect any downward movement to be swift and […]
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