By John Richardson DESPITE all the criticism surrounding President Trump’s handling of the Helsinki summit, 79% of Republican voters said that they approved of how he handled his meeting with President Putin, according to Axios/SurveyMonkey. The Wall Street Journal also reports that in 1992, 15 of the 20 most manufacturing intensive Congressional districts in America […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Prepare For A More Regionalised, Fragmented Polymers World
By John Richardson THE above map global shows our base-case forecasts for global trade flows of HDPE, LLDPE and PP in 2025. It is the result of lots of hard work and smart thinking around feedstock costs, logistics costs and demand growth etc. and is a good start to your scenario planning process. The map […]
US-China Trade War Heavily Focused On Energy, Petchems
By John Richardson Normally, the blog only publishes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, but this week is an exceptional week because of the unfolding US-China trade war. So today I publish a post with more to follow tomorrow. YESTERDAY it became apparent that the US-China trade war includes a large number of energy, petchems, polymers […]
China Holds Most Of The Good Cards In Trade War With US
By John Richardson THE BREAKOUT of formal trade hostilities between China and the US, after more than a year of a “war of words” between the two countries, has occurred shortly after the EU responded to the US aluminium and steel tariffs with tariffs of its own against US goods. The much-feared tit-for-tat exchange of […]
G7 Meeting And The Risks For US Polyethylene Producers
By John Richardson IN All the noise, confusion and economic anxiety following last weekend’s very acrimonious G7 meeting in Canada, you might have failed to notice one very significant detail for the polymers industry. This was the refusal by the US and Japan to sign a plastics charter put forward by Canadian Prime Minister, Justin […]
Plastic Waste Crisis Will Reverse Petchems Globalisation
By John Richardson IT IS hardly surprising that a hot topic of discussion amongst chemical company CEOS gathered for the American Chemistry Council’s annual meeting in Colorado Springs, the US, was the threat of trade wars. As I have long argued, there is more than a 50% chance that we will end up in a […]
Petchems Markets To Become Entirely Regional As Trade Barriers Increase
By John Richardson WHEN Donald Trump held election rallies during 2016, the amount of anger directed at mainstream Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton was, as everyone knows, intense. She represented the kind of mainstream politician that many of those who voted for President Trump blamed for stagnating middle class income levels and the loss of […]
As Global Trade War Moves Closer, Impact On Petchems In 2018-2019
By John Richardson IT USED to be the case that one week was a long time in politics, but now, because of policy conducted via Twitter and other forms of social media, five minutes seems to be a long time in politics. The state of events can change by the time you’ve left your screen […]
How Europe Can Move To Polyolefins Self-Sufficiency
By John Richardson THE CONSENSUS assumption is that Europe will remain a major importer of polyolefins for the foreseeable future. Lack of feedstock advantage is said to be a reason why rising deficits will not be met by local production. But few of the people who attended the 1900 Easter Parade in New York saw […]
China Emerges As Winner In New Multipolar World
By John Richardson TODAY’S headline should be written on your petrochemicals company boardroom wall, in several inch-high capital letters, and should then be used as the basis for a deep discussion about the consequences of this outcome for your business. You should then build scenarios around how this would change investment strategies and trade flows. […]
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