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Asian Chemical Connections

China’s Polyethylene Market: Three New Scenarios For 2018-2025

By John Richardson THE above slide underlines the growing complexity surrounding China’s economy, politics, society,  environmental policies and trading relationship with the US. I’ve placed this complexity in the context of the implications for the polyethylene (PE) industry. The above slide, and the full explanation below, updates my three scenarios from last September. These new […]

China: “The Dog Ate My Homework” Won’t Do

By John Richardson TWO Chinese plastic processing companies are in financial difficulties because they have used raw-material purchases for speculation, a polyolefins industry source told the blog. “The companies are in trouble because they resold their inventories in order to invest directly in real estate, or indirectly in real estate via the shadow-banking system. This […]

China: Do The Maths On 2014 GDP Growth

By John Richardson DO the maths and you should be able to assess what could happen to China’s GDP growth in 2014: The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences wrote last week in the China Daily: If the PBOC loosens monetary policy to push down borrowing rates, it will have to achieve total social financing – a broad […]

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 […]

The Purified Terephthalic Acid Sweet Spot

By John Richardson WHEN is a recovery a sustainable recovery? This a key question for chemicals companies as they prepare their budgets for 2014. What has happened this year in both polyethylene (PE) and the polyester chain has surprised some people. China’s polyester demand was higher than expected in July and August, leading to a […]

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