Blogs
Supply shortages drive olefin market profitability (Chemicals & The Economy)
The above chart would have seemed unbelievable at any time in the past 30 years. It shows the performance of propylene and butadiene relative to ethylene. Not because it shows butadiene prices racing ahead relative to ethylene (green line). This...
More speakers confirmed for 7th ICIS World Olefins Conference
The 7th ICIS Olefins Conference, set for 29 February 2012, has announced some speaker additions to the programme: John Medico, Business Director - Crude C4 & Butadiene at TPC Group will deliver a paper which looks at the North...
MOVES: Michael Peeters joins Vinmar
Michael Peeters, formerly with ExxonMobil, has joined traders Vinmar in January, the company informed the Blog on Monday. Based in Belgium, he will be in the Olefins Europe team, where he will be focussing on crude C4s, butadiene and...
Coskata looking at bio-propylene
The blog normally does not cover IPOs (initial public offerings) filed by biofuel companies given that there are so many biofuel companies out there. But the one thing that caught the green blog's attention in their $100m IPO announcement is...
European ethylene volumes at decade lows (Chemicals & The Economy)
Europe's cracker operators are heading into a crisis, again, for the 2nd time in 3 years. The chart above, based on official APPE data, compares quarterly ethylene volumes since 2000. It shows: • 2011's total Q1-Q3 volume of 15.2MT was...
A quick recovery for butadiene (Asian Chemical Connections)
By Malini Hariharan Asian butadiene prices are once again on their way up, rising over 20% in the last two weeks. Prices last week were at $1,900/tonne cfr Northeast Asia, up from a low of $1,500-1,600/tonne cfr Northeast Asia in...
US And Europe Polyolefins Raise Exports (Asian Chemical Connections)
By John Richardson in Houston, Texas DESPERATELY weak polyolefin demand in both the US and Europe is resulting in an increased focus on export markets. The US market appears to be in particularly severe distress with, as we discussed last...
China looks for LPG (Asian Chemical Connections)
By Malini Hariharan The blog has been trying to get more information on what's driving Chinese interest in liquefied petroleum gas (LPG)-based petrochemical projects. Plans for eight propane dehydrogenation (PDH) plants have already been announced and more could be in...
PDH spreads in China (Asian Chemical Connections)
By Malini Hariharan After methanol-to-propylene (MTP), Chinese companies are racing to build propane dehydrogenation (PDH) plants with eight new projects announced over the last three months. The blog estimates that PDH projects with a total propylene capacity of 4.6m tonnes/year...
Elevance files for $100m IPO
A busy IPO (initial public offering) season this year as Illinois, US-based Elevance Renewable Sciences joined the ranks of Myriant, Genomatica, Gevo, Amyris, Solazyme, Codexis and Metabolix. The company submitted its S-1 form to the US Securities and Exchange Commission...
