By John Richardson WHEN somebody very senior in the petrochemicals industry makes a bold statement – one that pulls no punches – it is worth taking note. And so it is worth reading in full what Stephen Pryor, ExxonMobil Chemical president, said at the opening ceremony for ExxonMobil’s latest Singapore petchems complex on 8 January. […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Thailand’s Political Crisis Threatens ASEAN-China Growth
By John Richardson THE political crisis in Thailand might take several more years to solve, if it can be solved at all, a chemicals industry executive told the blog on its recent trip to Bangkok. We very much hope that he is wrong otherwise the victims of the crisis could be many people in Thailand […]
China Slows Down
By John Richardson CHINA’S economy appears to have slowed down. Evidence of the lost momentum was provided by manufacturing purchasing manufacturers’ indexes (PMIs) released last week and the release on Monday of service sector PMIs, which all showed lower growth in December. The HSBC service sector PMI was at its lowest level since August 2011. […]
Researching China Credit And Growth
By John Richardson A lot of the focus in polyethylene (PE) markets at the moment is on supply and on what impact this might have on the key China market during 2014. Crunching this data will always remain a crucial part of assessing all petrochemicals markets, but, in China, do we need other tools as […]
Gas, Gas, And Perhaps Even More Gas
By John Richardson THE global petrochemicals industry is stepping on the gas as it accelerates both capacity expansions and the restructuring of existing assets. Apologies for the pun. In the US, of course, some 25m tonnes/year of ethylene capacity is due to be added, most of it after 2017, thanks to big volumes of cheap […]
US Housing: The Demand Conundrum
By John Richardson WEALTHY people don’t buy most of the world’s chemicals and polymers production because there are not that many wealthy people in the world – especially in the US these days. The Economist, in it’s the World In 2014 magazine, writes of the US economy: “Much of the growth in GDP has gone […]
China’s Debts: Close Your Eyes, Hope For The Best
By John Richardson LACK of transparency is fine when any economy is booming. Think of Indonesia pre-1998 before the fall of Soeharto. No foreign or local investor really cared that much about where the suitcases of money were going because the price of corruption was well worth paying. Similarly in the US before 2008, most […]
China In 2014: Some Predictions
By John Richardson IT was a year to remember, for the right reasons, for anybody who bet on a recovery in Chinese polyethylene (PE) demand. Back in May, it was all doom and gloom. But since May, thanks to a surge in the availability of credit, apparent demand (local production plus imports) has bounced […]
The Minority Isn’t Always Wrong
By John Richardson “I REALLY worry about the ability to export extra capacity from the US as I think global markets will become much more regional,” said a source with a poylolefins producer . “The US is also pretty much a saturated market because of high existing levels of polymers consumption [see the above graph] […]
3D Printing Likely To Change Just About Everything
By John Richardson 3D printing will very probably force manufacturers, including those who make chemicals and polymers, to build entirely new business models. Here is why: The young in Western societies will be poorer because of less aggregate demand as a result of the retirement of the Babyboomers. They will need to save a lot […]
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