2009: The post-chemical free fall era

[China Epoxy Network (China Epoxy Industry Online)February 10, 2009 News: After the ups and downs of 2008, the historical cycle has rolled into the "bull" year.
After a not-so-prosperous 2008, the Chinese chemical industry has hoped to take advantage of the “bull” trend in 2009 to usher in a new turn for the better.
Whether it is to continue the downturn all the way down or face up to difficulties and fly up against the wind, industry professionals are waiting and watching.
According to experts from the China Epoxy Industry Association ( the global financial tsunami has brought double pressure on domestic crude oil.
First, there is a large amount of market supply, and the domestic macroeconomic development is the second reason that affects the economic operation of the industry.
In the face of an unfavorable environment, how should we deal with it? A few days ago, Cytec Industries, Air Products and PPG Industries have announced that their third-quarter earnings will be lower than previously expected.
Industry analysts predict that "the ripple effect caused by the credit market crisis may continue until the first half of next year, and various consumer industries will experience weakness.
" Then, according to the relative lag of the chemical industry, the recovery time may come later.
.
According to the US media, “Although in the past 10 years, US chemical companies have actively implemented strategies including mergers and acquisitions, structural adjustments, and greater innovation in accordance with their own development needs, but the economic crisis triggered by the credit crisis has caused the overall business of chemical companies to change from The peak value dropped by 57%".
Facing the "crisis storm", most foreign chemical companies acted calmly.
After all, they have just experienced the crisis from 2001 to 2003, and many lessons are still fresh in their memory.

Therefore, in the face of this severe challenge, they appear to be quite orderly-Dow Global CEO Li Weicheng said a few days ago: "Although we believe that the global economy will be in recession for most of the time in 2009, Tao We are fully prepared to accept the test of the current economic downturn.
We have a stable balance sheet and strict financial discipline that has always been effective.
At the same time, we continue to focus on the aspects that we can control, namely: cost And capital, asset restructuring and other intervention measures.
In addition, we will continue to implement our transformation strategy.
Although we cannot start our merger with Kuwait Petrochemical Industry Corporation (PIC), a petrochemical joint venture, we will complete the announced Luomen Haas acquisition transaction.
” According to experts from the China Epoxy Industry Association ( ordinary enterprises will encounter the problem of lack of funds in the process of development and growth, and almost every family will “have foreign debts”.
, And banks are often the biggest "creditors" of enterprises, and borrowing from banks is to repay interest, that is, interest-bearing liabilities.
Interest-bearing debt ratio (the proportion of interest-bearing debt to total assets) among debt-bearing companies, high corporate risks will be great.
In this "economic crisis" triggered by the "subprime mortgage crisis", those companies with high debt ratios were the first to bear the brunt, often because they were unable to continue to borrow money from banks, causing the company's capital chain to break; or they were unable to repay huge amounts of interest.
In the end, they fell in front of interest-bearing liabilities, and they became the first victims of this economic crisis.
The conservative "low-debt" business strategy that has been criticized by the West has "brilliantly shined" in this crisis.

    The low debt-to-debt ratio indicates that the financial costs are low, the risk is low, the debt repayment ability is strong, the operation is relatively stable, and the attitude toward investment behavior is more cautious.
According to experts from the China Epoxy Industry Association ( Japanese chemical companies are among the leaders-the average gearing ratio of Japanese chemical companies is 32.
7%, while the figure for US chemical companies is 37.
9 %.
Among them, Shin-Etsu Chemical is even an extremely rare zero debt.
Kuraray has only 6.
2%, Kaneko 9.
9%, Asahi Kasei 16.
2%, Sekisui Chemical 14.
7%, and Tokuyama 15.
0%.
Therefore, in the face of the global financial crisis and economic downturn, Japanese chemical companies have at least achieved a "stable financial situation.
" Of course, there are also some petrochemical predators who are "doing not escape".
BASF is reducing the output of about 100 factories.
Dow Chemical has taken a series of major measures to accelerate its transformation strategy and has temporarily closed about 180 factories.
In 2009, many large domestic petrochemical companies also scheduled longer-term maintenance plans.
The increase in the starting load of global petrochemical plants still requires time and market conditions.
Affected by the slowdown in global growth, the construction of some large petrochemical projects has also been postponed.
For example, Thailand’s PTT Chemical Company has now predicted that due to financial difficulties, its set of 600 to 1 million tons/year naphtha cracking with an investment of 1 billion US dollars The plant, which was originally planned to be put into operation in 2012, will be postponed, and its 1 million tons/year ethane-based cracking unit, which was originally scheduled to be put into operation at the end of 2008, has also been postponed.
In December 2008, China's import and export volume fell for the second consecutive month, and the accelerated contraction of foreign trade undoubtedly cast a shadow on the future growth prospects of China, the world's third largest economy.

(Our reporter Ruo Hua)

Ben Wang 2007 enable the "Chinese epoxy net" new name retains "China Epoxy Resin Industry online" name
English name: E- .