By John Richardson A LOT of the talk at this year’s GPCA conference in Dubai was of the need for more free trade in petrochemicals. There seems to be a risk that as more countries develop refinery and petrochemicals businesses, free trade will decline rather than increase. Creating and protecting jobs will, surely, be a […]
Asian Chemical Connections
The Iran-West Nuclear Deal: An Update
By John Richardson MANY thanks to a good friend of the blog, Mark Mark Mirosevic-Sorgo, managing director of the Singapore-headquartered shipbrokers Braemar Quincannon for what follows – some excellent analysis of what the Iran-West nuclear deal might mean for the petrochemicals business, which follows on from our earlier post. Here are Mark’s comments: It has […]
Iran-West Nuclear Deal Could Boost Naphtha Cracking
By John Richardson THE blog has met many Iranian delegates during its seven years of working for ICIS Training and visited the country a couple of times during the early 2,000s. We love the people and the country, but not some of the politics on both sides. And so it was great news to hear […]
Regional Trading Blocs: Globalisation In Reverse
By John Richardson HAS anyone out there considered the possibility that we could end up with a series of regional trading blocs as globalisation goes into rapid reverse? Or have chemicals companies instead come up with one-dimensional outlooks that assume the world will become more, rather than less, open, thus making it easy to shift […]
Chemicals Companies Need To Prepare For Deflation in 2014
By John Richardson IF the US Fed’s polices are working why is AP Moller Mearsk – the shipping company which is widely seen as a proxy for global trade – cutting costs and reducing capacity? Probably because as Henny Sender wrote in the Financial Times: “It is clear that the Fed’s quantitative easing is not […]
Prepare For More Fragmented, Protected Markets
By John Richardson Last week, the blog gave a presentation at the ICIS Asian Polyolefins Conference in Jakarta during which we highlighted the anxiety over the impact of increased low cost ethylene and derivatives exports from the US. But only 3.9 million tonnes of ethylene and derivatives are forecast by ICIS Consulting to be surplus […]
China Polyester “Too Big To Fail”
By John Richardson HAVE some companies in the polyester chain in China worked themselves into a position where they are “too big to fail?” And might capacity additions carry on, despite Beijing’s attempts to rein-in further additions to already oversupplied industrial sectors such as the polyester chain? These were some of the questions the blog […]
Re-assembly Job No 2: China Local Govt Revenues
By John Richardson THERE are personal reasons why local government officials in China might effectively resist the boldest economic reform agenda since 1978. Career advancement is one such reason, as is making money on the side. “By building a large dam, road or giant housing complex [or a new chemicals plant], an official can boost […]
Australia: Nice Work If You Were Able To Get It
By John Richardson BACK in the late 1990s, the blog held a discussion with an Australian petrochemicals industry executive. He described his country’s approach to free trade, or rather the lack of it, as “to put it politely, naïve, and to put is less politely, plain stupid.” He was referring to how Australia had aggressively […]
China: No New “Demographic Dividend”
By John Richardson ANOTHER, on the surface, stunning announcement last Friday – along with promises of root and branch economic reforms – was China’s decision to relax its one-child policy. All of these announcements followed the conclusion of last week’s crucial Third Plenum. From now on, couples will be allowed to have two children if […]
Jump to page: