By John Richardson IF WE ARE involved in a new protracted Cold War, this will change just about everything for the petrochemicals industry. Or, of course, we could go back to the Old Normal. Corporate planners must therefore press on with drawing up short, medium and long-term scenarios and then apply these scenarios to tactics […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Sustainability means reducing carbon emissions as well as plastic waste
By John Richardson THIS IS VERY much a personal plea to our industry about what I see as the biggest challenge we face in 2021 and beyond: carbon and other greenhouse gases. “We need to rebrand climate change as the climate crisis,” a source who works for an oil, gas and petrochemical company has been […]
Debate about refinery closures, re-configurations a harmful distraction for the petrochemicals business
In the second of a four-part series of blog posts that examines the paradigm shift confronting the petrochemicals industry – rising public and legislative pressure over plastic rubbish – I look at the harmful distraction of conventional thinking. Far too much of the debate within our industry is whether or not there will be enough […]
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 […]
Three Scenarios For 2018-2025 China Polyethylene Demand Growth
By John Richardson CHINA leads the world in many aspects of renewable energy and has an electric vehicle industry that is receiving the kind of state support that is very probably making foreign competitors green with envy. The explosion of commerce via the mobile internet takes your breath away. Average per person spending on mobile […]
Sunset For Oil? You Must Be Kidding, Surely?
By John Richardson SURE, you can very easily argue that the oil industry is many, many decades away from going down the same path as the coal industry, where, in countries such as the US, it is going bankrupt. The biggest case for oil’s longevity is its role in transportation, it is altogether from […]
Opportunities Can Vanish Before You Know It
By John Richardson “Just when you think it is the right time to make an investment case to a board of directors, the particular opportunity you have been studying has an annoying habit of disappearing,” said a business development manager for a global polyolefins producer. His comments reflect the increasingly complex world in which we […]
Will the US dinosaurs ever learn?
yet-more US dinosaurs, dinosoars, carbon capture and storage, Alberta tar sands, shale sands, renewable energy, wind power, solar power, second-generation biofuels
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