By John Richardson THE world will have produced a total of 6.9bn tonnes of the 11 synthetic polymers I’ve detailed in the above chart between 1978, when our data begins, and the end of 2017. Using the assumptions behind an important new study that was launched in July this year, let’s assume that 76% of […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Chemicals Companies Must Be The Solution And Not The Problem
By John Richardson MORE than 40 years after the launch of the first universal recycling symbol, only 14% of plastic packaging is collected for recycling. When additional value losses in sorting and reprocessing are factored in, only 5% of material value is retained for a subsequent use. Plastics that do get recycled are mostly recycled […]
Tomorrow’s Economic Supercycle: Only If We Build A lot More Toilets
By John Richardson AFTER my presentation yesterday during the 4th ICIS Asian Polyolefins Conference in Bangkok, someone asked me a very good question: “Where is the next Economic Supercycle going to come from?” My answer was as follows: Quite possibly from the developing world. But countries that have more mobile phones than toilets will only be able to […]
China And A Breakdown In Free Trade: Scenarios For Petrochemicals
By John Richardson MY blog post last Friday, on the threat to the petrochemicals industry of a retreat in global free trade, has gained a great deal of interest. This is good as this is an essential debate. Today I am therefore going to take this important debate further by considering in more detail how […]
Oil Prices, Chemicals Markets Face Steep Declines
By John Richardson THERE are three things you need to know about today’s global chemicals markets: Oil prices are now retreating back to quite probably below $30/bbl, and so of course there will be a chemicals destocking process. But the good news, if you can call it that, is that the destocking process won’t be […]
Go Where The Money Is: Sanitation And Water
By John Richardson HOW do you define global progress? Is it the number of extra people each year who are able to afford to buy a smartphone, or is it the number of additional people who are given access to modern sanitation? The thing is that ownership of smartphones will soon reach ceiling until or […]
The Opportunities For 2016 And Beyond Are Huge
A happy festive season and all the best for the New Year to my readers. What should chemicals companies do to be successful in 2016 and beyond. What follows will help. I am taking a break from blogging, but will be back on 3 January. By John Richardson WHAT have we learnt from the last […]
Dow And DuPont: How A Merger Could Work
By John Richardson DOW Chemical and DuPont are companies with tremendous histories. It is no exaggeration to say that they have helped to build the American economy, right from the early days of Henry Herbert Dow and Eleuthère Irénée du Pont. Their innovations have not only created wealth for America, their employees and their shareholders […]
Autos Material Science: 180 Degree Change For Petchems
By John Richardson HERE is an example of how the links between the petrochemicals and polymers business and the autos industry have long worked: In the 1980s, propylene was a very low value co-product of naphtha and other liquids cracking. You always make around half a tonne of propylene for every one tonne of […]
Oil Analysts Should Have Taken “O Level” History In The 1970s
By John Richardson WHEN Abraham Darby discovered a way of using coke to smelt iron ore in place of increasingly expensive wood in 1709 his technology didn’t stand still. Armies of engineers sought ways of making his process better, which led to the pivotal introduction in 1828 of “hot blast” technology. The “hot blast” breakthrough […]
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