By John Richardson AROUND 90% or more of the price movements in most chemicals and polymers are tied to crude oil. Add to that the pick-ups in buying than can occur from time to time, based on supply and demand factors specific to particular chemicals markets, and you end up with a devilishly difficult job […]
Asian Chemical Connections
The World Is Turning Upside Down
By John Richardson A COMMON view is that Asia’s petrochemicals markets are merely suffering from a temporary destocking phrase, driven by the collapse in crude-oil prices. So when crude oil prices settle down, everything will be fine. Many people also assume that the current widespread “buyers’ strike” is the result of seasonal factors – i.e. […]
The Philippines: What A Fantastic Opportunity
By John Richardson The Philippines is in a demographic sweet spot, according to the CIA factbook. In 2013, for instance, 34% of the population was aged between 0-14 and 19.1 was aged between 15-24. This is potentially fantastic news if the Philippines can do something about its dreadful infrastructure. As the New York Times points out in […]
China: GDP And Forgetting What You Already Know
By John Richardson THE blog has a terrible confession to make: We sometimes get it very badly wrong. How’s that for modesty? A couple of months ago we got it very badly wrong when we kept waffling on and on, in post after post, about whether China would hit GDP growth of 3-4%, 5%, 6% […]
China Reforms: The Global Implications
By John Richardson IT can feel logical to assume that the fundamentals of the petrochemicals business in Asia haven’t really changed. When you think about it, apart from a brief interruption in the region’s success story during the Asian Financial crisis in 1997-1998, everything has been pretty much plain sailing. And in retrospect, the severity […]
“Fragile Five” Now “The Exposed Eight”
By John Richardson IT used to be just the “Fragile Five” – Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Africa and Turkey. But last week, the Financial Times, drawing on data and analysis from Schroders, added three more countries to the list of those most-exposed to Fed tapering: Hungary, Poland and Chile. Thus we needed a new handy […]
The WTO “Bali” Deal Versus ASEAN Priorities
By John Richardson WHY sacrifice national or regional growth for the sake of freer global trade? This is a question the blog has been asking itself since the breakthrough last week at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks in Bali. This follows our earlier thoughts on how regional trading blocs may become much more significant. […]
Less Rather Than More Petchems Free Trade
By John Richardson A LOT of the talk at this year’s GPCA conference in Dubai was of the need for more free trade in petrochemicals. There seems to be a risk that as more countries develop refinery and petrochemicals businesses, free trade will decline rather than increase. Creating and protecting jobs will, surely, be a […]
Australia: Nice Work If You Were Able To Get It
By John Richardson BACK in the late 1990s, the blog held a discussion with an Australian petrochemicals industry executive. He described his country’s approach to free trade, or rather the lack of it, as “to put it politely, naïve, and to put is less politely, plain stupid.” He was referring to how Australia had aggressively […]
The Hedgehog And The Fox
By John Richardson Are there more hedgehogs in the chemicals industry than foxes? This thought came to the blog after meetings with industry executives this week during its latest visit to Singapore. Bear with us and we will, we promise, as quickly as possible get to the point. The philosopher Isaiah Berlin, in his famous […]
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