By John Richardson CHINA will do what suits China from a national perspective. Remember this in all your new thinking about how its chemicals industry will behave in the future and I think you will be on the right tracks. So, as in the past, you cannot afford to look at the cost-per-tonne economics of […]
Asian Chemical Connections
China’s New “For Profit” Chemicals Industry? Think Again….
By John Richardson IF you think that running a chemicals company in China can be compared to running one in the West then please take a look at the above chart. This is an updated version of a chart Paul Hodges and I have run on Sinopec in the past, which includes the full-year 2014 […]
GDP Turns Negative In 11 Of China’s 31 Provinces
By John Richardson CHINA has always been a complex and challenging place to do business, but at least during the Supercycle, you were guaranteed of this one thing: Strong economic growth across just about the whole of this vast country. No longer. First of all, let’s look at one of China’s continuing success stories – […]
Too Good To Last for Asian Petchems? Yes
By John Richardson IT has been a fantastic few months for the integrated Asian polyethylene (PE) producers as the above chart illustrates. You can see that the average price for naphtha was $533/tonne CFR Japan in April. This compared with an average high-density PE (HDPE) price of $1,271/tonne CFR Northeast Asia and an average low-density […]
China: Don’t Listen To The Stimulus Nonsense
By John Richardson THE Shanghai Composite Index soared to a seven-year high yesterday on the hope that China’s government is about to launch more economic stimulus because of the release of another disappointing HSBC purchasing managers’ index (PMI). Factory orders shrank at their fastest rate in just over a year, according to the preliminary May […]
Rudderless Australia Drifts On
By John Richardson THERE used to be two certainties in life that everyone in Australia could depend on. We all know that the first certainty was, and sadly still is, death. But the second certainty was China acting as the “bankroller” of the Australian economy. This has all but vanished since late 2013. The second […]
Quantitative Easing Just Doesn’t Work
By John Richardson AT long last! Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank (ECB), said in a speech to the IMF last week: We have to be mindful that too prolonged a period of very low real rates can have undesirable consequences in the context of ageing societies, where many households save not just […]
More Evidence That US Shale Oil Is The New “Swing Producer”
By John Richardson SICK today with a bad cold – hence this very short post. Will, hopefully, be back in full action, though, later today or tomorow Meanwhile, here is some more background reading, which underlines myy argument that shale oil has become the new “swing producer”. It is also all good see the constant […]
US Split Into Two Countries And Both Must Prosper
By John Richardson WHAT is the most important job for any politician? Ensuring the long term economic health of her or his country. And in the ideal world, our politicians should pick the policies that get this essential job done, whether they are from the left, the right or the political centre ground. Who cares […]
Shallow Discussions Versus Complex Oil Price, Economic Realities
By John Richardson IT has been a very good year so far for European and Asian naphtha cracker operators, as the chart above illustrates. As you can see, in the case of high-density polyethylene (HDPE), naphtha-based integrated margins in 2015 are turning out to be a better so far this year than those in 2013 […]
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