By John Richardson A THIRD myth about China is that its political leaders are superb technocrats who put their counterparts in the West to shame. This follows on from the two other myths I discussed last week. Linked to this belief about politics in China is that democracy in Europe and North America is almost […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Moving Beyond A World Of Myths: Steps One And Two
By John Richardson We are living in a world of myths that are at long last being exposed as such, although I worry that this could be too late for some chemicals companies. One myth I discussed yesterday is the idea that because Chinese consumption of petrochemicals is so much bigger than a decade ago, […]
Why The China “Higher Base” Argument Doesn’t Stand Up
By John Richardson WHAT an amazing success story. The above chart shows that: China’s high-density polyethylene demand rose by 151% between 2000 and 2014 to end up at around 10 million tonnes. Low-density PE consumption surged by 72% to approximately 4 million tonnes. And linear-low density PE was up by 133%, ending up at 8 […]
China: There Are No Shortcuts To Recovery
By John Richardson STOCK markets can do what they want over the next few days and weeks. They will surely bounce around like crazy on every tiny detail of economic news from China. For example, yesterday there was a 3% recovery in London, a 4% rebound in Paris and Germany was up by 5% (but […]
Beyond Panic Here Are Five Pointers For The Future
By John Richardson WITH US oil prices now below $40 a barrel and so heading in the direction that I’ve warned about since the “fake recovery” in February-June, people will be panicking, quite understandably. The global collapse in stock markets will also be adding to this sense of panic. The immediate job will also be […]
US Petchems: Last Piece Of Expansion Logic Fades On Falling Crude
By John Richardson THE demand was simply never going to be there to support anywhere close to the number of US cracker and derivatives projects listed in the table above. There long been two reasons for this: The US is a mature market with no demand growth since 2000 in ethylene and the biggest-volume derivative […]
Surviving The Crisis Depends On How You React
By John Richardson PEOPLE make up chemicals companies – not just ever-more ingeniously assembled molecules. So how people react from now onwards will determine which companies survive and which companies fail in the New Normal. The people who are on the boards of the world’s chemicals companies need to tear up their strategies and start […]
Time To Scrap Old Thinking On Oil Markets
By John Richardson A SEASONAL fall-off in demand for oil, rising concerns over the Chinese economy and worsening global oversupply of crude could push oil down into the $30 dollars a barrel range, a majority of analysts surveyed by the Wall Street Journal now believe. And money manager David Kotok has told CNNMoney that oil […]
China’s Environment: Business As Usual Not An Option
By John Richardson SONG Wei, an environmentalist from Hunan province, told the BBC in July: “No more economic growth stained by blood. Under the new environment law, every factory has to be approved before it’s built. We’re putting an end to unregulated chaos.” (China introduced a New Environmental Protection Law in January). The cynics will, of […]
$30 A Barrel Crude: Six Reasons Why It Will Happen Again
Want to know what do next? Then contact ICIS Consulting at john.richardson@icis.com By John Richardson IT WAS clear as early as January 2013 that US shale-oil production was on the rise. Back then I warned that this new supply threatened an oil-price correction. If you stepped back from the consensus, it was also clear […]
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