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 […]
Asian Chemical Connections
China plans to raise ethylene capacity by 113% in major self-sufficiency drive
By John Richardson IN SEPTEMBER last year, I had thought that China might raise its ethylene capacity by as much as 71% by as early as 2022 over its end-2017 level of 23.5m tonnes. Now, though, our updated data show the potential for a staggering 113% increase over the next four years, when you look […]
China’s Pollution/Economic Campaign To Reshape Petchems
By John Richardson I BELIEVE that China’s environmental crackdown will continue to disrupt petrochemicals and polymers markets for the next few years. This is not a temporary phenomenon that will largely go away with the end of the September 2017-March 2018 campaign to minimise air pollution in 28 northern cities. Further waves of environmental inspections […]
China’s Polypropylene Market: The Right Questions You Simply Must Ask
By John Richardson On the surface, the above chart represents very good news for exporters of polypropylene (PP) to China. As you can see, our base case sees import volumes creeping up from around 3.9m tonnes in 2018 to 4.2m tonnes in 2025. But this chart should be merely a starting point for a much […]
China’s Xi: Squaring Circle Of Poverty Alleviation, Environment
By John Richardson THE ONLY China that most foreigners have visited, including myself, is the southern and eastern seaboard provinces where all the talk is about booming poylolefins and other polymers demand on the rise in middle class consumption. So strong is middle class consumption growth via mobile internet sales that the multiples of polyethylene […]
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 To Raise Ethylene Capacity By 71% In Major Self-Sufficiency Drive
By John Richardson CHINA could raise its ethylene capacity by as much as 71% and its propylene capacity by at least 21%, according to my latest analysis of a major new wave of naphtha, ethane and LPG crackers. The above chart is an update of the chart I first published back in June. In detail: […]
China Moves Towards Commodity Grade PE Self-Sufficiency By 2025
By John Richardson THE argument I’ve been making for a couple of years now is that the history of petrochemicals in China suggests a constant drive towards much greater self-sufficiency. No value chain is immune, I have kept contending. The recent history of a sharp rise in self-sufficiency in polyvinyl chloride (PVC), purified terephthalic acid […]
China’s One Belt, One Road: What It Means For PP and PVC
By John Richardson MONDAY’S blog post on China’s One Belt, One Road initiative has produced a very strong response. I thus thought it was important to discuss in detail what what One Belt, One Road could mean for two major polymers – polypropylene (PP) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC). One Belt, One Road is happening because of huge social, political and economic changes taking […]
China’s Export Strategy: The Realistic Scenario
By John Richardson THE analyst was giving me hard time. “You see, the problem is you are not a chemicals engineer, and haven’t crunched the supply and demand data and cost curve data. What you are talking about is all fuzzy and intangible and so just plain wrong”. The conversation I was having with this […]