By John Richardson DEMAND, as I discussed on 11 February, will not be a problem for the global polyethylene (PE) business in 2021. We could see a continuation of the pandemic-related demand patterns we saw in 2020 if say problems with variants of the virus prevent us from moving significantly closer to herd immunity. The […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Petrochemicals and demand: a deer caught in the headlights
By John Richardson THE THING is, as I discussed in my 9 February blog post, we simply do not have our hands on the data. Unless we improve our access to data, and greatly ramp up our ability to process and analyse the numbers, the petrochemicals industry will remain largely in the dark on demand. […]
Global PP demand to remain resilient in 2021 even if we fail to control the pandemic
By John Richardson THE ABOVE chart, using polypropylene (PP) as an example, neatly crystallises an argument I’ve been making since last August: that the changes in 2020 end-use demand resulting from the pandemic enabled petrochemicals and polymer producers to more than compensate for the overall weakness of economies. Despite the collapse of GDP growth last […]
Why it is obvious few, in any, conventional steam crackers will start-up after 2030
By John Richardson I SAID TO a contact earlier this week that it was remarkable that a senior executive at a petrochemicals company thought few, if any, conventionally built steam crackers would come online after 2030. His response was, “of course, that’s obvious”. But from the perspective of some other industry executives, the future is […]
China paraxylene imports may be just 6.6m tonnes in 2021 – 58% lower than only three years ago
By John Richardson PLEASE DON’T say I didn’t tell you. Further big declines in China’s paraxylene (PX) imports seem likely in. We could also see less dramatic falls in polypropylene (PP) and styrene monomer (SM) imports this year, which I shall detail in later posts. But here a I shall focus on PX. This year’s […]
The new oil shocks: semiconductor supply shortages threaten the global economy
By John Richardson HIGH VALUE semiconductors, which are defined as five nanometres (billionths of a metre) or less in size, have become the new oil – as vital as the black stuff for the workings of the global economy. Semiconductors will, in fact, become even more important as the age of oil comes to an […]
China petrochemicals overstocking likely substantial as Q1 slowdown risks increase
By John Richardson THE ABOVE chart on the left – showing average month-on-month percentage increases in China’s polypropylene (PP) imports in 2009-2019 versus the pattern in 2020 – underlines my argument that the production and export-led recovery that China enjoyed last year was part of a government plan. You can see the same pattern in […]
Final China PE 2020 numbers and new outlook for this year as logistics and pandemic threats increase
By John Richardson NOW THAT we have the final data for 2020, for last December, we can complete the picture of what was a truly extraordinary year. As I’ve been highlighting since last August onwards, a pandemic-related shift in demand led to a much stronger Chinese polyethylene (PE) market than just about anyone had expected. […]
Vaccine nationalism and lack of debt relief remain major threats to petchem growth
By John Richardson WE LIVE in a highly interconnected world as this statistic underlines: of the $18tr worth of goods that were traded last year, intermediate goods or components of finished goods represented $11tr, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. In the key automotive, textile, retail and construction petrochemical end-use industries, many […]
China’s economic dominance carries many short and long-term risks for petrochemicals
By John Richardson JUST 5% of US companies with revenues of more than $500m plan to relocate operations out of China, according to the latest survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai. This partly reflects highly networked manufacturing clusters, wrote the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in this excellent article. “Automotive and electronics clusters […]