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Asian Chemical Connections

Oil Prices: You Must Answer The Supercycle Argument

By John Richardson THE continuing failure of genuine price discovery in oil markets was perfectly summarised  by the the Wall Street Journal today, when it wrote: Commodity hedge funds added $4.1 billion in the first quarter, their best quarter in more than six years, eVestment said Monday. That trend is still supporting oil prices now, giving […]

Saudi Arabia’s “Vision 2030”: What It Means

  Demand: The New Direction for Profit   By John Richardson SAUDI ARABIA’S “Vision 2030”, which was released on Monday, underlines what has been clear from government statements for a long while – that the Kingdom knows it has to move beyond just exporting crude oil. It needs to break what Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has […]

Sitting On The Fence Involves Choosing Failure

By John Richardson IF you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. So the choice today is yours. If you remain on the fence, still unsure about whether the end of the Supercycle is real or not, you will be no different to those who say that the fundamentals that govern the chemicals industry haven’t changed. […]

China Takes Two Steps Back: The New Lending Surge

By John Richardson JUST as it appeared as if the visionary reformers within the Chinese government had won their battle to deflate the most economically and environmentally toxic investment bubble in global economic history, China has taken a step backwards. As the chart below shows, total social financing (TSF) has once again gone through the […]

European Polyolefins: Rebuilding The Bridges

  By John Richardson SHOULD any petrochemicals value chain be a zero-sum game – a constant battle between suppliers and customers to determine who emerges as the single winner in any one month or quarter? No, absolutely not. It is possible to create win-win situations for both suppliers and customers, as has been the case […]

The Doha Oil Meeting: Were You Ahead Of The Curve?

By John Richardson IT WAS tremendous whilst it lasted for the hedge funds and will have enabled them to make a lot of money – the ones who, of course, had the good sense to switch from long to short positions ahead of yesterday’s failed Doha meeting. Chemicals companies with a decent planning department should […]

Beware Of Oil-Price Rally: Nothing To Do With Fundamentals

By John Richardson PEOPLE are once again at risk of dangerously over-exposing themselves to a further collapse in oil prices following yesterday’s increase to the highest levels since November 2015. The obvious risk  is that there will be stock building up and down all the petrochemicals values chains, only for oil to once again decline […]

Managing Relationships And Demand In China

By John Richardson SOME of China’s plastic converters started out life with loans of just a few thousands yuan from private small lenders, or even friends and family. But now these same converters operate nationwide networks of factories and are multi-millionaires. And with scale has also come sophistication. No longer do they just make basic […]

The End Of The Economic Supercycle: What To Do Next

By John Richardson THE above infographic explains the end of the economic Supercycle: •During the 1980s/1990s, the BabyBoomers – the largest and wealthiest generation that the world has ever seen – entered the Wealth Creator generation (those aged 25 – 54), when income and spending peak •They powered the SuperCycle. •The world’s largest economy, the […]

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