By John Richardson MOST of the analysis on the tenth anniversary of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) focuses on the effects on Western economies and societies. Economic inequality has risen since 2008 resulting in the rise of populist politics, is a very common theme. But almost entirely overlooked is the huge effect that the GFC […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Don’t Forget Turkey And Its Importance To Global Polyolefins
By John Richardson YOU might well have forgotten the Turkish lira crisis because of the US/China trade war. But Turkey is crucial for the health of the global polyolefins business because of the size of its imports. Before the US fell out with Turkey, resulting in the collapse of the lira, we had expected that […]
Turkey Crisis: Implications For Polyolefins And Global Economy
By John Richardson THE first ramification of the Turkey crisis is that the collapse of the lira raises questions over how Turkish importers will be able to afford the dollars to pay for some of the polyolefins imported since the crisis began. Then comes the issue of what happens to Turkish polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene […]
Chemicals Demand Is Not Going To Return To Normal
By John Richardson EUROPEAN cracker operators are rushing to snap-up naphtha prices before prices rise again, reports my colleague Nigel Davis, in another of his excellent Insight articles. “The lower crude price seems to be driving downstream demand. Europe’s crackers are said to be running flat out,” adds Nigel, who has tapped into the market intelligence […]
Eight Steps To Realising This Will Be Worse Than Lehman Bros
By John Richardson WE are going through a process of realisation at the moment. It is not a linear process – i.e. not all people will be at the same stage. Equally, chemicals and other company executives will move backwards and forwards between different stages in the eight-step process. We can only hope that the […]
BBC: “How China Fooled The World”
By John Richardson FOR the last three years, the blog has been asking people to challenge the consensus view of China. We have often been accused of being pessimistic for the sake of pessimism. This misses the point. Our point has always been that every chemicals company – our customers – need to build in […]
APIC And Demand
Just an anomaly? Source: American Chemistry Council By John Richardson FEEDSTOCK advantage is, of course, crucially important, but so is demand. And yet the only subject that most people wanted to talk about in any depth at last week’s Asia Petrochemical Industry Conference (APIC) appeared to be how to achieve feedstock advantage. Why? […]
Here We Go Again
By John Richardson EVERYONE should read the following section from this Economist article with great concern. Central bank stimulus might well be doing more harm than good. “When Americans borrow money to buy a car or a house, their debts are often repackaged as the backing for a bond,” writes the Economist. “Before 2007 investors […]
China Economic Policies To Get Tougher
By John Richardson THERE will, of course, be bright spots in petrochemicals markets as a result of factors independent of China’s new economic direction. For example, as an aromatics trader points out, there are huge paraxylene (PX) capacity additions in Asia that will provide a great deal of support to reformer economics. In 2010-2013, he […]
Threat of Oil “Permafrost”
By John Richardson Saudi Arabian oil minister Ali al-Naimi on Tuesday did his best to calm the oil markets by arguing that the kingdom had met all its customers’ requests for crude, and was ready to raise output to full capacity of 12.5m barrels a day. “My only mission is to convey to you that […]