By John Richardson THE ABOVE CHART, from the new ICIS Plant Cost Evaluator, underlines the container freight challenges I’ve been highlighting for the Asian petrochemical markets since last year. How the product works is that polypropylene (PP) capacity to the left of the black line, represented by the green shaded area, is capacity that is […]
Asian Chemical Connections
A deep dive into HDPE and PP: opportunities and challenges for H2 this year and 2022
By John Richardson Executive summary China’s petrochemicals demand boomed in H2 because of the surge in Chinese exports of finished goods that served lockdown needs in developed economies. As lockdowns ease, most of the air has escaped from what was clearly always a bubble. For example, high-density PE (HDPE) demand is set to be 9% […]
The multi-million dollar polymers opportunity: continued big regional price differentials
By John Richardson POLYMER BUYERS outside northeast (NEA) and southeast Asia (SEA) have a big opportunity to save millions of dollars on procurement costs during the rest of this year through purchasing more from the two regions. The opportunity has arisen because I believe that NEA and SEA polymer prices will remain very cheap relative […]
BASF Highlights Changes In Growth
Martin Brudermüller Source of picture: BASF By John Richardson “THE struggle over China’s future direction seems to be harder fought than we had imagined,” said BASF vice chairman Martin Brudermüller last Thursday, in a German newspaper interview. “There are very intensive discussions being held in China about the direction the country should take. […]