How on earth does one respond to the daily news flow? The answer must be headline scenarios – best, – medium and worst-case scenarios
Asian Chemical Connections
Deep understanding of inland China essential for tracking 2019 slowdown
By John Richardson CHEMICALS companies are at great risk of getting Chinese demand very badly wrong in 2019 if they rely too heavily on flawed government data. This article from the South China Morning Post is another example of the long-standing practice of official data underestimating economic weakness when a downturn is taking place. The […]
China Pollution Campaign: 2018 Chemicals Market Opportunities, Challenges
By John Richardson XI JINPING mentioned the environment no less than 89 times during his three-and-a-half hour opening speech during October’s 19th National Party Congress. China’s president did, however, refer to the economy 70 times during that same speech, but his whole emphasis was on the quality rather than quantity of growth. Evidence to support […]
China And Xi Jinping: The Five Big Challenges You Must Understand
By John Richardson THE above slide, from my speech at this year’s Gulf Petrochemical Association Forum, is a summary of much of the analysis on this blog over the past 12 months. This is another of my print-out-and-keep guides. Please pin to your chemicals company boardroom wall as you plan your scenarios for China. In […]
China To Now Raise Ethylene Capacity By 84% As Self-Sufficiency Drive Accelerates
By John Richardson SINCE my last update on 18 September, our ICIS China team have discovered a further 2.4m tonnes/year of ethylene capacity being planned in China via the steam cracker process (see the updated table above, with the changes from September indicated in red). There will also of course be more propylene via steam […]
China Accelerates Chemicals Plant Relocations As Supply Disruptions Build
By John Richardson THE RELOCATION of all chemicals plants classified as producing toxic products from China’s big towns and cities to chemicals-industry parks is being speeded-up. Relocation work first began in 2014. But earlier this month, a new directive from the State Council stipulated that: All of the country’s small- to mid-sized chemicals plants that […]
China Puts Environment Ahead Of GDP As Chemicals Shortages Build
By John Richardson FURTHER evidence has emerged of the Chinese government’s determination to deal with an air pollution crisis that a new study says shortens life spans in China by three years . Local government officials have long been measured by how rapidly they expand GDP growth. But in a quite stunning reversal of policy, Beijing has […]
China’s War On Air Pollution Causes Major Chemicals Shortages
By John Richardson CHINA is quite literally going to war against air pollution as tries to tackle a health crisis that causes some 1.6m deaths every year. The end-result is major shortages up and down many chemicals value chains. The environmental campaign is in lock-step with wider economic reforms. Economically inefficient low value manufacturers that […]
China Coal-To-Olefins Projects Not Just About Oil Prices
By John Richardson CHINA will do what suits China from a national perspective. Remember this in all your new thinking about how its chemicals industry will behave in the future and I think you will be on the right tracks. So, as in the past, you cannot afford to look at the cost-per-tonne economics of […]
Don’t Bet On A Post-Lunar New Year Rebound
By John Richardson THERE is a very risky theory that I have picked up in my conversations with Asian polyolefin industry players over the past few days: Strong underlying demand growth in China, low stock levels held by the country’s plastic converters and a stabilisation of oil prices will result in a firm recovery […]
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