This is the first of a series of blog posts where I will examine the environmental paradigm shift and what it means for the petrochemicals industry. This first post deals with the bottom end of the value chain, the plastic packaging business, and the pressure being exerted upward on petrochemicals producers to change how they […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Retreat of globalisation and implications for petrochemicals
By John Richardson EVER SINCE the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, and the last great geopolitical struggle came to an end, the petrochemicals business has benefited from a highly globalised world. Product has flowed, almost seamlessly, from one country to another in ever greater volumes. Sure, it has never been the case of feedstock advantage […]
Petrochemicals and autos: the last 50 years provide little guide to the future
By John Richardson IT HAS been an amazingly half a century of innovation for the petrochemicals industry. The light-weighting of automobiles, combined with booming demand for autos, has delivered many billions of dollars of value to companies. The latest figures from the American Chemistry Council, which only cover North America, give a pointer towards the […]
Rate of recovery hugely reliant on effectiveness of government policies
By John Richardson UNLESS MORE action is taken by developed countries to help counter the impact of the pandemic in developing countries, we could see a bifurcated world. The developing world might suffer a lost generation of growth as the developed world fully recovers. But this, in my view, is a highly unlikely scenario. Failure […]
China bans on single-use plastics move forward with major recycling investments likely
By John Richardson THIS EVENT slipped under most people’s radar in the midst of the pandemic crisis: on 10 July, multiple provinces across China (we don’t know which provinces and how many provinces) were told to submit plans by mid-August on how they were going to implement a central government crackdown on plastic waste. I […]
The pandemic and petrochemicals demand: a whole new approach is required
By John Richardson MONITORING demand has never been harder because of the pandemic. One of my colleagues on the ICIS Pricing team was, for example, last week told by one of his reliable contacts that polyethylene (PE) demand was good, bad or indifferent. It used to be that if you talked to the people you […]
Why history might not even rhyme next year if economic recovery fails to arrive
By John Richardson WE were very lucky in 2010, as the above chart illustrates. Global demand for polyethylene (PE), which had fallen to minus 3% in 2008 because of the Global Financial Crisis, bounced back to 10% growth. We were lucky for two reasons. Firstly, the world’s financial system was rescued, which at one stage […]
Vaccine hopes versus reality and the implications for petrochemicals
By John Richardson THE WONDERFUL poet, T.S. Eliot, wrote “humankind cannot bear very much reality”. One of the realities that I believe many us have failed to come to terms with is that an effective coronavirus vaccine isn’t just a few months away, but is instead several years away. I believe we will eventually get […]
China’s long-term ambition for paraxylene self-sufficiency seems close to being realised
On Friday, I examined how China’s paraxylene (PX) net imports could fall to as little 8m tonnes in 2020 from last year’s 16m tonnes. This would have major negative implications for the big exporters to China such as South Korea, Japan and India. I believe this is the beginning of a long-term shift – the […]
Coronavirus and the way forward: Forecasting micro surges in petrochemicals demand
By John Richardson THE MONTH of May is normally a low season for toluene di-isocyanate (TDI) demand in Europe because of reduced consumption of goods such as sofas and beds filled with flexible foams made from TDI. Perhaps not this year. There are reports from our market editors of long queues outside some furniture stores […]