By John Richardson SOMEHOW, despite the still very serious container freight shortages that have limited imports, buying sentiment seems to have weakened in the European polyolefins market, according to my outstanding ICIS colleague, Linda Naylor. Our excellent ICIS Pricing team in Asia are also sensing a shift in the mood in southeast Asia (SEA) as […]
Asian Chemical Connections
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 […]
Petrochemical market confusion set to continue as China deflation approaches
By John Richardson OFFERING clear guidance to petrochemicals investors and other stakeholders remains incredibly difficult in this environment. What happens next has probably never been as uncertain, making it difficult for producers to provide concrete projections for the rest of 2021 following an excellent Q1. At the heart of the problem remains whether demand in […]
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 […]
China quarter-on-quarter data finally confirms loss of growth momentum
By John Richardson WE WILL CONTINUE to stumble around in the dark unless we gain a much better understanding of the new variables that are shaping the petrochemicals business. As I’ve been discussing since last August, one of the grey areas is demand and how it has been reshaped by the pandemic, on top of […]
Global supply chain disruptions may maintain, or even add to, regional petchem imbalances
By John Richardson THE GLOBAL petrochemicals business looks set to remain largely in the dark about what will happen next to container freight and semiconductor supply. This a new area of risk for producers and buyers that highlights the need for much better analysis and data on the pandemic’s impact on markets. Let me begin […]
China threatens to shift global petrochemicals from inflation to deflation as self-sufficiency increases
By John Richardson POLYPROPYLENE (PP) producers in Europe and the US are making very good money as the slide below shows, detailing LPG-based variable cost margins. In Asia, where margins have long lagged behind the other two regions, profitability has also picked up. Demand isn’t going to be the problem Part of the explanation is […]
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 […]
Iran may gain 48% of total China HDPE imports, 85% of LDPE imports by 2025 because of new deal
By John Richardson IRAN and China earlier this month signed a wide-ranging economic and security agreement that has been under negotiation for five years. The deal involves $400bn of investment in the overall Iranian economy with as much as $280bn of spending on oil, gas and petrochemicals. Before I crunch the data and demonstrate how […]
China early data points to 42% fall in 2021 HDPE imports
By John Richardson China’s high-density polyethylene (HDPE) imports in 2021 look as if they might collapse versus last year, according to the early data for this year (see the above chart). The same could apply to polypropylene (PP) and styrene monomer (SM) imports, as I discussed earlier this week. The potential 40% decline in HDPE […]