By John Richardson SOME petrochemicals companies believe that their big cracker and derivatives projects will produce positive returns in a few years, when, in fact, it could take much longer, say several industry sources. The sources feel that the growth story in emerging markets is becoming ever-more complex, involving ever-more degrees of ambiguity. Headline arguments about, for […]
Asian Chemical Connections
China Drives Down Yuan To Protect Jobs
By John Richardson WE first warned in December 2011 that as China’s economic reforms accelerated, Yuan depreciation was a strong possibility. And then in May of last year, we picked up the theme again by again suggesting that as growth in China slowed, Beijing would attempt to support the economy through boosting exports via a […]
The “Logic” Of US Ethane Exports
By John Richardson THE search for feedstock advantage is constant, given that some 80-90% of variable costs for any petrochemicals producer consists of the cost of acquiring raw materials. Hence, my colleague Nigel Davis, in this excellent Insight article, writes: The US company, Enterprise Products, is planning an ethane export terminal on the US Gulf […]
China Pulls Back From Funding Other Emerging Markets
By John Richardson IT important to be relentlessly realistic about the risks no confronting emerging markets in general, now that China is focusing much more on its own internal problems and needs. One of these risks – reduced funding of infrastructure and other projects in the emerging world by Chinese banks – was highlighted in this […]
Narendra Modi’s Infrastructure Challenge
By John Richardson NARENDRA Modi looks as if he will end up leading the BJP-coalition to victory in India. This has led to a surge in optimism that he can repeat the “economic miracle” he achieved in Gujarat at a nationwide level. We wish him every success, but, of course, politics is the art of […]
China Faces Lower Growth In Q2
By John Richardson WE conducted another of our highly unscientific surveys amongst polyethylene (PE) producers and traders last week and the message remained the same: Persistently weaker-than-expected downstream demand in China. “Many downstream plastics processors have seen persistently weak orders for plastics finished and semi-finished goods,” added the commentary accompanying the ICIS pricing polypropylene (PP) […]
Free China Outlook Webinar On Wednesday
By John Richardson THE blog has spent the last three years focusing heavily on China’s economy. Our analysis, which predicted China’s about turn, has now gone mainstream. And now we are running two free webinars on Wednesday (23 April), which will provide our readers with our views on where we think China is heading over the […]
What Chinese Q1 GDP Growth Really Tells Us
By John Richardson ONE of the comments the blog often hears is that even though China’s GDP growth has clearly decelerated, when measured against anywhere else in the world its growth rates are still tremendous. This argument is deeply flawed and belongs to the world of “wishful thinking”. The key, instead, is to first of […]
China Housing The Biggest Risk
By John Richardson WHEN the blog made the point during a recent presentation that China is still predominantly a poor country, a chemicals industry executive pointed out that it doesn’t feel that way if you visit the Apple store in Hong Kong. If you do, you will see lots of rich mainlanders buying every I-Phone […]
China Credit Growth Lowest Since 2005
By John Richardson CHINA’S polyolefins markets have picked up over the last few weeks on reports of tighter supply. For example, there are no less than 15 turnarounds taking place in China between March and June. This involves the shutdown of 2.61m tonnes of polyethylene (PE) capacity and 1.63m tonnes of polypropylene (PP) capacity on […]
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