By John Richardson DEVELOPED WORLD oil and gas majors who faced rising investor pressure on greenhouse gas emissions accounted for just 15% of global energy production, said Jason Bordoff, co-founding Dean of the Columbia Climate School in this important article in Foreign Policy. The rest lay with the state-owned energy giants who were under far […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Container freight crisis requires new approaches to cash in on strong underlying demand
By John Richardson I MADE THE argument last Thursday that until or unless the world is fully vaccinated against the pandemic, container freight chaos would continue because of further waves of port restrictions such as the ones taking place at ports in Guangdong province. My argument is that we must raise vaccination rates in […]
Global polyethylene demand boom likely, increasing the sustainability challenge
By John Richardson IT FEELS LIKE several lifetimes ago. If you recall, way back in November-December 2019 Asian variable cost integrated naphtha-based polyethylene (PE) margins turned negative because of the increase in US capacity. Then in January the following year, deep Asian and Middle East operating rate cuts returned some order to the market. Then, […]
The pandemic, climate change, plastic waste and the great divide: the world in 2025
By John Richardson NOBODY SHOULD be surprised that the developing world has fallen behind in the battle to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as the region is a long way from recovering from the pandemic. Evidence to this effect emerged last week in comments made by Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA). […]
Boom in petrochemicals demand guaranteed but we must grow sustainably
By John Richardson ONE OF THE GREATEST achievements of the last 30 years has been the fall in the number of people living in extreme poverty. In 1999, 1.9bn of the world’s population were living on less than $1.90, the Word Bank’s definition of extreme poverty. Despite setbacks caused by the pandemic, this had […]
Demographics are reshaping petrochemicals trade flows, investment patterns and demand
By John Richardson TEN YEARS AGO, fellow blogger Paul Hodges and I first highlighted the leading role that changing demographics would play in reshaping petrochemicals supply and demand. We have been emphasising the importance of demographics ever since. Demographics have, of course, always been a critical shaper of economies throughout human history. But during […]
Middle East and Asia petchems need reinvention because of rising China self-sufficiency
By John Richardson MIDDLE EAST, southeast Asian (SEA) and northeast Asia (NEA) ex-China petrochemicals producers need to transform themselves because of China’s rising self-sufficiency. In polypropylene, styrene monomer (SM), ethylene glycols, paraxylene and methanol, China has the potential to by itself reach complete self-sufficiency over the next two-to-five years from its position today of being […]
Environmental crises: no “silver bullet” solution but petchems must get this right
By John Richardson NO one-size-fits-all technological solution to the climate change and plastic waste crises is likely to work. What we will instead very probably see is a patchwork of solutions across regions and countries. This will be combined with what I believe must be common global regulatory approaches that everyone adheres to. I cannot […]
China PP and styrene Q1 apparent demand seems to indicate slowdown
By John Richardson WE MUST BE careful here. If 2020 taught is anything, it is that China has the capability of stunning everybody with the speed of its economic growth, even against a backdrop of a much slower global economy. Few people imagined, including myself, that in the dark days of March last year, China […]
Petrochemicals demand and the pandemic: we continue to stumble around in the dark
By John Richardson THE BIGGEST UNKNOWN out there remains whether petrochemicals and polymers demand will be stronger, the same or weaker post-pandemic than during the pandemic in the developed markets plus China. We seem to be getting no closer to any answers. This matters from a hard-hearted dollars and cents perspective because the developed markets […]