Published on May 31, 2017
Recently China hosted “One Belt One Road” forum which was attended by heads of around 100 countries including the heads of African nations, South Asian countries, Russia and Europe. There were higher ranked dignitaries as well which includes the president of the World Bank and the managing director of the IMF. In this entire summit India distanced itself and decided not to participate in OBOR policy. The idea of this policy this is to rebuild the old marine and overland trading rou ..
Published on May 24, 2017
There has been persistent weak demand and weakening of prices in petrochemical market in Asian countries this year. Asian markets have been the poor performers in international market in petrochemical segment. The downward in this segment was prominent due to slacking of crude values in international market. This in turn led to weak demand in the downstream segment. The major petrochemical feedstock naphtha closed at $453.50/tone CFR last week in Japan, down from the average ..
Published on December 18, 2014
The next wave of cyclicality is upon the petrochemical industry, and in the up-cycle most industry players, however the down-cycle affects the businesses that lack the access to less-expensive hydrocarbons. The next highest point in the petrochemicals cycle is expected to occur by the end of 2015 or early 2016. This peak could be accompanied by a sluggish pace of growth in China, especially because of increased capacity build-up. The Middle East is cracking heavier feeds to balance lack of ab ..
Published on November 25, 2014
Asian petrochemical prices have fell steeply in the midst of declining crude values on the back of rising woes about global growth and demand. NYMEX crude fell by 6 cents to $81.78/b on October 15, while ICE November Brent slipped $1.26 to $83.78/b, a four-year low. Asian paraxylene also slipped $16/mtday on day to be assessed at $1, 066.50/mt CFR Raiwan/China October 15 amid a sluggish crude market and weak demand. Asian PX prices have been declining since September as a result of weak feedsto ..
Published on October 2, 2014
The shale gas revolution has revitalised the North American petrochemical industry, resulting in increased capital investment in new projects. Apart from oil and natural gas, shale fields also contain natural gas liquids (NGLs), thereby providing the market with new supplies at low costs. This cheap feedstock has led to a shift in profit pools, benefitting petrochemical manufacturers instead of gas producers and processors. Asian petrochemical firms have started relying on LPG replacing costlie ..
Published on September 9, 2014
Benzene which a component that is derived from coal and petroleum, is also found in other fuels and gasoline products. Benzene which is the value chain of nylon had dropped down its prices on 4th September, 2014 in the Asian and European region mainly due to bearish buying sentiment and also from weak downstream values. On 5th September, 2014 crude oil which is one of the main ingredient of all the petrochemical products had inched down on the back of a rise in the number of jobless reimbursemen ..
Published on July 25, 2014
Iran has been heavily reliant on oil and the fluctuating oil prices have had a direct impact on government's budget. Iran, however, plans to promote an economy independent of oil even though the western sanctions have been eased. Heavy dependence on oil revenues has affected economic growth of the country. The sanctions may have affected the country's economy but it also helped this nation realize how dependent they were on oil revenues. In the budget bill for March 2014-March 2015, 39.9 per c ..
Published on May 28, 2014
Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) despite opposition from environmentalists has been performing exceptionally well. Demand for thermoplastic has been growing steadily, especially from the construction sector. This increase in consumption has been due to the versatile mature of this material. Also, PVC is inexpensive and can be processed easily to a wide variety of forms and shapes with excellent properties like flame retardancy. Polymer is recyclable, provided the right technology is used, and compared ..
Published on May 22, 2014
The traditional heating oil is gradually being replaced by cleaner-burning fuels such as natural gas and lower-sulfur distillate grades. In US, majority of the households rely on natural gas as their primary heating fuel, while only 6 per cent use heating oil. New York uses more residential heating oil than any other state. But they reduced the amount of sulfur in home heating oil to 15 ppm in 2012. Rhode Island also reduced sulfur levels to 50 ppm in 2013. In July, states like New Jersey, Conne ..
Published on May 19, 2014
Since November 2013 in Thailand the protests over anti-government have been ongoing aiming at removing the influence of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra from Thai politics. Moreover, from last year November the country has been gripping from the political conflict as petrochemical industry of Thailand has been largely lagged. However, with the prolonged government instability, its economy is likely bear the brunt. As per the researched analyst political strife will have no impact on ..
