The Business Times (Singapore): Oil, Petrochem Players Bank on Chinese Buyers

“‘We are seeing some signs of life in the Asian industry,’ Colin Shelley, consulting manager at UK’s Poten & Partners, told the Condensate and Naphtha Forum.  But this may not be sustained, he warned. ‘Current conditions suggest a minimum two-year slump, which suggests the earliest petrochemical turnaround would be in the fourth quarter of 2010.’  This implies that while the existing crackers here of Petrochemical Corporation of Singapore and Exxon Mobil will just have to ride out the storm, the two new crackers of Shell and ExxonMobil, now under construction, could be right on target given their start-up dates of mid-2010 and early-2011.  Mr Shelley said that the petrochemical industry usually leads the market down, then back up again, which suggests global recovery could also start happening then.”