By John Richardson THE ABOVE chart is again telling us something very important about the real state of the Chinese economy. It shows Northeast Asian (NEA) benzene pricing spreads over naphtha feedstock costs, (NEA pricing is in effect a China price as of course China dominates the NEA region). Dr Benzene, as with Dr Copper, […]
Asian Chemical Connections
China: There Is Still Time Left To Fix Mistakes
By John Richardson WHEN something seems as if it is just too good to be true it usually – and this applies to China’s auto market. As I have long argued, growth had to moderate from the 138% increase in sales that we saw between 2008 and October of last year. It is just plain […]
China: Estimating “Wealth Effect Decelerators”
By John Richardson HERE is one of the many charts out there which show the awesome growth in chemicals and polymer consumption in China since 2000. In this case, as you can, see the product is polypropylene (PP), where consumption has risen from around 4.5m tonnes in 2000 to approximately 18m tonnes in 2013. No […]
China Autos: The Race To The Bottom
By John Richardson CHINA’S autos market is not behaving in the way that it did in 2008-2013, when, as the chart above further illustrates, demand growth was nothing short of staggering. In Q1 of this year, sales growth moderated to 10% – and we think it will go much lower. This 10% compares with […]