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 […]
Asian Chemical Connections
China early data point to PP imports collapsing by 78% this year with SM 67% lower
By John Richardson CHINA’S apparent demand for polyethylene, polypropylene (PP), styrene monomer (SM) and paraxylene fell during the first two months of this year versus November-December 2020. I have yet to crunch the data on the rest of the major products, but I suspect the trend will be the same. (This comparison is the only […]
Seeing through the lack of data: new scenarios for global LLDPE demand in 2021-2025
By John Richardson WE DON’T HAVE THE DATA sets nor the data tools to work out what is going to happen next with any acceptable degree of reliability. Until or unless we develop the necessary data sets and tools we will remain, in my view, all at sea about the direction of petrochemicals demand. The […]
China’s critical 2021 “two sessions” highlight major economic challenges ahead
By John Richardson IT CONTINUES to surprise and disappoint me how every minutiae of the recent US petrochemicals outages have been pored over by analysts and yet relatively little attention is being paid to plant operations in China and the real, underlying nature of the country’s petrochemicals demand. This is despite China being far more […]
Seeing beyond tight supply: three new scenarios for global HDPE demand in 2021-2025
By John Richardson AT A TIME LIKE THIS, when petrochemicals and polymers prices are surging and margins for some products are also on the rise, it is very hard to cut out all the noise and focus on long-term analysis. Nobody, of course, can afford to ignore the realities of today’s extraordinary markets, probably the […]
China’s missing data still point to unclear direction for exports, petchems demand
By John Richardson THE GOOD NEWS is that the total US dollar value of China’s total exports increased by 33% in January-February 2020 to $483bn over the same first two months in 2019, according to a few further morsels of trade data that emerged yesterday. A comparison with 2019 is much more relevant than drawing […]
China’s “two sessions” in 2021 could easily set the direction of global petchems for decades to come
By John Richardson DO YOU have a dedicated team studying the policy outcomes from this year’s meetings of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) which began last Friday and finish on 11 March? (These annual meetings are commonly referred to as the “two sessions”. For reasons described below, […]
Complexity of global PP demand post-pandemic: Three new scenarios for 2021-2025
By John Richardson THE COMPLEXITY of the economic outlook is such that nobody can say with even the smallest degree of genuine confidence what will happen to global petrochemicals and polymers demand over the next five years. It is hard to know where to start in suggesting scenarios of how the interconnections between today’s four […]
Making all the stuff the world needs in sustainable ways is our defining challenge
By John Richardson YOU ARE a global petrochemicals producer either headquartered in Europe or with major operations in Europe. Stepping up your recycling game must be part of your strategy because of ever-intensifying EU legislation, including the introduction of an €800/tonne charge on plastic waste from January this year. The charge is paid by each […]
China’s petchems market rally: we don’t have enough data to decide whether it is sustainable
By John Richardson CHINA’S PETROCHEMICAL prices typically increase when the Lunar New Year (LNY) holidays come to an end. But because some of China’s factories either did not shut down at all this year or staggered their closures to control the country’s limited second wave of the pandemic, this week’s price rally might have not […]