ChemInsight 360

The Kigali freeze is a wall for capacity that is not built, and a moat for capacity that is. December 2027 is the last day anyone can buy a seat at the Indian R32 table and the ticket is feedstock, not quota.

A chip is a physics device made possible by chemistry. Every etch, clean, deposition, polish and exposure step runs on a material that must be purer, flatter, thinner or more selective than the step before. This Sector Scan maps that materials layer from first principles to market structure, built from AJC field work across the Chinese semiconductor-materials ecosystem, the largest expansion theatre in the world today for chemical manufacturers, investors and strategy teams that need to place the sector in a chemicals frame.

SMS Pharmaceuticals has changed the economics of its ibuprofen business. AJC’s India Desk work over the past fortnight shows the company has completed backward integration into isobutylbenzene (IBB) and now runs the entire ibuprofen API chain in-house: IBB, IBAP and API. With integration done, plant engineering, process innovation and batch scale are doing the rest, and AJC now regards SMS as a fully integrated producer and one of the most cost-competitive ibuprofen API manufacturers in the world.

*Saudi Aramco has indefinitely suspended term crude deliveries to Indian refiners (~9% of India's crude basket) and told all European term customers they will receive zero crude for October.

Trigger: the 1,200-km East-West pipeline (up to 7 mb/d, Abqaiq to Yanbu) has been offline since a 10 Sep drone strike. Three pumping stations damaged; full repair up to six weeks. No Saudi crude has left Yanbu since 11 Sep.*

On 10 September, Sichuan Fulin New Materials rolled the first product off Zone B of its 350,000 t/yr LFP cathode project in Mianzhu, Sichuan. Zone A is already at full rate; Zone B ramps through September. The project closes the loop on the CATL–Fulin Precision partnership — from equity stake to physical capacity.

The world has lost pentaerythritol capacity it cannot quickly replace. China is keeping its own tonnes at  home. India is shielded by anti-dumping duties. That combination hands Kanoria Chemicals pricing power at home and abroad with defence explosives demand still to come.

Ibuprofen is in short supply in Europe. At the same time, one of India’s ibuprofen producers is weighing a sale or exit from the business. Both events land on a market that has already left its expansion phase behind: global effective capacity sits at roughly 36,000–37,000 tonnes per year, India and China together control well over 70% of it, and the competitive field has consolidated to seven core players plus BASF at the premium end.

Cost push at the bottom of the chain, quota discipline in the middle, demand fatigue at the top. Methanol and chlorine lifted chloromethanes; refrigerants sat unchanged on firm quota-backed quotes; fluoropolymers kept discounting into an off-season with no buyer in a hurry.

Cost push at the bottom of the chain, quota discipline in the middle, demand fatigue at the top. Methanol and chlorine lifted chloromethanes; refrigerants sat unchanged on firm quota-backed quotes; fluoropolymers kept discounting into an off-season with no buyer in a hurry.