By John Richardson THE ABOVE chart shows the major role that China has played in driving global inflation, deflation – and now inflation again – since 2008. There is a close link between the movements in China’s Producer Price Index (PPI) and Consumer Price Indices (CPIs) in the Eurozone, the US and the UK. The […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Crude Drives Asian Polyethylene Spreads To Three-Year Low As 2018 Risks Build
By John Richardson IN MARCH 2016 we gave three scenarios for crude-oil prices: Collapsing Demand where we saw crude falling to $25/bbl on weak global demand that would make it impossible to repay much of the huge debts that had been built up since 2008. This is the result of economic stimulus polices that we maintain […]
Global Economy Is Less Able To Withstand A New Oil Price Shock
By John Richardson HISTORY has a tendency to move very slowly, inching forward incrementally, and then all of a sudden a flurry of events over an incredibly short space of time can change everything. This is where we are today. Oil prices had been creeping up long before the 4 November launch of the anti-corruption […]
Next Polyethylene Downcycle: Risk That History Will Repeat Itself
By John Richardson WE can break the history of the global polyethylene (PE) business so far this century into four major phases, thanks to the above chart, which was compiled with the help of our excellent Supply & Demand Database: 2000-2001: Global polyethylene (PE) operating rates dipped to an average of 81% on the end […]
Four Billion Tonnes of Plastic Waste And Counting: The Threat To Petchems Growth
By John Richardson THE world will have produced a total of 6.9bn tonnes of the 11 synthetic polymers I’ve detailed in the above chart between 1978, when our data begins, and the end of 2017. Using the assumptions behind an important new study that was launched in July this year, let’s assume that 76% of […]
Peak Oil Demand Opportunities For Petchems Are Being Over-Hyped
By John Richardson THERE is a lot of excitement about new petrochemicals feedstock opportunities resulting from the approaching end of the road for the internal combustion engine, the rise of the electricity battery car and the related arrival of Peak Oil Demand. Here is some of the logic which supports the notion that the demise […]
China, China And China: The Three Drivers Of Global Styrene
By John Richardson THE DATA on global polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) undermine the notion of booming emerging markets demand. In reality, it is only Chinese demand that has boomed and not the emerging markets as a whole. And when you look at all the commodity chemicals and polymers value chains, the headline data tells you […]
China Drives 58% Of Global PP Growth, So What’s Your Plan B?
By John Richardson THIS IS a great example of putting most of your eggs in one basket! Polypropylene (PP) shareholders are entitled to ask what Plan B is if China can no longer deliver as much as 58% of the total growth in global PP demand. This is what ICIS Consulting forecasts will be the […]
Stock Market Threats Far Wider Than Just North Korea
By John Richardson LAST WEEK’S steep fall in global stock markets was of course the result of rising US-North Korea geopolitical tensions. Some $1 trillion was wiped off equity values. We obviously all hope that the geopolitical tensions will ease. But that would still leave behind a bull-run in global equities that has mainly been […]
Oil Prices Falling Towards $35 On US Supply, China Demand
WTI continues its journey towards a possible $35/bbl by Q4 of this year on rising US shale-oil production and a slight slowdown in the Chinese economy with big implications for global economic growth. And $25/bbl or lower crude in 2018 seems perfectly possible on these same dynamics. By John Richardson THE US shale oil industry was never going to […]
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