Chemical News
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Black Friday sales online top $1 billion for first time: comScore Nov 26,2012
Online sales jumped 26 percent on Black Friday to $1.04 billion from sales of $816 million on the corresponding day last year, according to comScore data. Amazon.com was the most-visited retail website on Black Friday, and it also posted the highest year-over-year visitor growth rate among the top five retailers. Wal-Mart Stores Inc's website wa...>>>
European xylene traders look to export cargoes to Asia as arbitrage opens Nov 26,2012
European mixed xylene suppliers were looking to put together cargoes for export to Asia as the arbitrage window to China and India looked open this week, sources said Friday. One supplier said it was putting together a 5,000 mt cargo it planned to load between November 25-December 10 and was expected to arrive in China in January. With Europ...>>>
Thailand's PTT mulls building a huge petrochemical and refining complex in Vietnam Nov 26,2012
Thailand's PTT Plc is considering building a huge petrochemical and refining complex in Vietnam, according to a statement released Thursday by the provincial government of the Vietnamese central province of Binh Dinh. Sukrit Surabotsopon, PTT's senior executive vice-president for petrochemicals and refining, presented a pre-feasibility study to...>>>
South, East China coal consumption to rise 300,000 mt by 2015: consultancy Nov 26,2012
Coal consumption in the South and East of China will reach 880 million mt/year by 2015, up by about 300 million mt from the current level, according to a consultancy report Friday. Most of the increase in consumption will be met by imports, Beijing-based Dexin Yongming Consultation said in its report citing figures from the energy research unit ...>>>
EURO GAS: Prompt rises in line with UK NBP, curve stable Nov 26,2012
Prompt gas prices on Continental Europe's trading hubs edged higher Friday morning, in line with the UK NBP, while rangebound oil kept later dated contracts stable. At midday UK time, gas for next-day delivery at the Dutch TTF was seen at Eur27.55/MWh, up 15 euro cent from the close on Thursday. Similarly, the day-ahead contract on the neighb...>>>
BP picks US head McKay to become new upstream chief Nov 26,2012
BP has appointed the current head of its US operations, Lamar McKay, to oversee the company's existing upstream oil and gas divisions, which were created in the wake of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the company said Friday. McKay, 53, became head of BP America in 2009 and has played a key role in dealing with US authorities and investors a...>>>
S Korea's YNCC posts 40% fall in Jan-Sep net profit to $133.5 million Nov 23,2012
South Korea's largest ethylene producer, Yeochun Naphtha Cracking Center, said Thursday its net profit dropped 40% year on year to Won 144.7 billion ($133.5 million) for the first nine months of the year, compared with Won 241.3 billion a year earlier. Operating profit also fell 39.5% year on year to Won 207.9 billion for the first nine months, ...>>>
HIPS loses luster as Asian end-users opt for ABS on falling prices Nov 23,2012
Demand for high impact polystyrene in Asia has fallen over the past one month on plunging acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene prices, making it more attractive than HIPS for many customers, Asian HIPS producers said this week. ABS is a more complex and comparatively stronger plastic than HIPS and tends to sell at a much higher price. But as the prod...>>>
Thailand aims to buy 250,000 mt of natural rubber by March: reports Nov 23,2012
Thailand plans to boost the natural rubber market by buying 250,000 mt of the commodity by March, news reports said Thursday, citing deputy farm minister Yuttapong Charasathien. Since May to date, the Thai government has bought about 170,000 mt of natural rubber from local farmers, Charasathien said. The approximate total of 420,000 mt repres...>>>
German Sept chemicals trade surplus shrinks 4.7% on year: Destatis Nov 23,2012
Germany's chemical trade surplus in September fell 4.7% year on year to Eur2.74 billion ($3.52 billion) as the value of exports fell faster than imports, an analysis of detailed data from statistics agency Destatis showed Thursday. Chemical export revenues declined 4.6% to Eur8.46 billion year on year on a 7% drop in volumes, while imports decre...>>>
Coal stocks at major Chinese power plants edge up 0.5% on week Nov 23,2012
Combined coal stocks at six major power plants in eastern and southern China averaged 13.777 million mt/day in the week ended Tuesday, up 0.5% from the previous seven-day period, Qinhuangdao Port said Thursday in a weekly report. The stocks held by Zhejiang Power, Shanghai Power, Guangdong (Yudean) Power, Guodian, Datang and Huaneng can last fo...>>>
UAE's Dana Gas inks deals with Sharjah, Ajman to develop offshore gas field Nov 23,2012
The UAE's Dana Gas has signed agreements with the Sharjah and Ajman governments to develop a gas field located about 40 km offshore in shared territorial waters, the company said in a statement Thursday. The agreements include a unitization plan for management of the shared field, gas sales and purchase contracts, and a joint operating agreement...>>>
Bangladeshi power plants to more than double oil consumption in H1 2013 Nov 23,2012
Fuel oil consumption in power plants in Bangladesh will more than double to around 800,000 mt in the first half of 2013 from around 320,000 mt in H1 2012, a senior official at Bangladesh Power Development Board said Thursday. The expected spike in consumption is because of state-owned BPDB's plan to keep all oil-fired power plants operating, he ...>>>
Ghana's presidential candidates outline plans on oil, gas Nov 23,2012
Ghana's presidential candidates have been outlining plans for the oil and gas sector, as the nation gears up for a decisive presidential election on December 7. The People's National Convention candidate, Hassan Ayraiga, said he would review all contracts with oil and gas companies. "The recent discovery of oil and gas in commercial quantiti...>>>
Two dead, up to 100 hurt in massive pileup on foggy Texas highway Nov 23,2012
The chain reaction of collisions shut down Interstate 10 about 15 miles west of Beaumont for several hours, said Deputy Rod Carroll of the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. "We have 18-wheelers on top of cars, we have cars on top of cars. It's just catastrophic," he said, adding that rescuers were still looking for victims. Two bodies were f...>>>
Pakistan's Attock conducts due diligence on possible Chevron asset buy Nov 22,2012
Attock Petroleum Limited, Pakistan's third-largest oil distributor, said Wednesday it was looking into the possibility of buying Chevron's downstream fuel assets in Pakistan and Egypt. In a filing with the Karachi stock exchange, Attock said: "APL is one of the interested parties conducting due diligence in relation to the proposed acquisition. ...>>>
Styron seeks to raise Dec polycarbonate prices on squeezed margins Nov 22,2012
Styron plans to increase polycarbonate prices in Europe by Eur230/mt ($294/mt) in December due to squeezed margins, it said in a statement Wednesday. "Following the elevation in costs of the key raw materials associated with the production of Calibre and Emerge as well as a decline in polycarbonate pricing over the past few months, PC margins ha...>>>
UK CCS could be cost competitive by early 2020s: task force report Nov 22,2012
Gas and coal-fired power generated using carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology could produce energy at a comparable cost to other low-carbon generation sources by the early 2020s, a government task force said Wednesday, The CCS cost reduction task force was created by the Department of Energy and Climate Change in March 2012 and published ...>>>
China's Oct natural gas imports rise 26.4% on year to 3.9 bil cubic meters Nov 22,2012
China's total natural gas imports rose 26.4% year on year to 3.9 billion cubic meters (4.44 Bcf/day) in October, the National Development and Reform Commission said Wednesday on its website. It did not give a breakdown between imported LNG and pipeline gas. Total apparent demand for natural gas was 12.4 billion cu m in October, an increase of...>>>
European LNG re-exports to S America up to 34.5 Bcf in year to date: Bentek Nov 22,2012
LNG re-exports from Europe to South America in the year to date rose to 34.5 billion cubic feet of gas equivalent of LNG from 7.7 Bcf in 2011, data published by Bentek Energy showed Wednesday, as market players worked the arbitrage between low prices in Europe and higher prices in South America. Based on Bentek LNG shipping assumptions of full c...>>>