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Asian Chemical Connections

Social Change And Growth

South Korea and its consumer-driven economy Source of picture:  KeystoneUSA-ZUMA/Rex Features   By John Richardson MEASURING demand growth cannot involve merely assuming that the future will be the same as the past, as this increasingly complex world continues to tell us. There are a myriad of social, political and environmental factors that will determine the […]

South Korea’s Demographic Challenges

By John Richardson SOUTH Korea serves as another example of how demographics are reshaping Asian economic prospects. “By 2018, 14% of its population will be over 65, making it officially an ‘aged society.’ That is six years sooner than Japan and more than a century before France, according to the Samsung Economic Research Institute,” writes […]

Weak PE Margins Reflect Big Picture

By John Richardson BEFORE we look at last week’s political handover in China in more detail tomorrow, while on Friday we will return to our theme of Asian demographics, the above slide illustrates what the big picture has meant for the polyethylene (PE) industry. As you can see, variable-cost margins for Northeast Asian producers fell […]

Asian Demographics Change Demand Patterns

THIS blog was once criticised for devoting too much time to the big picture – e.g. politics, economics and demographics – one of the major themes of our free e-book, Boom, Gloom & The New Normal. We beg to differ. While studying chemical-plant operating rates, new capacities, feedstock advantages and logistics etc are, of course, […]

Indonesia’s “Great Moderation”

Graph prepared by The Economist   By John Richardson INDONESIA has enjoyed eight consecutive quarters of 6% GDP growth and so – along with several other mainly domestically-demand driven Asian economies – is viewed as a haven of stability in an increasingly uncertain world. The country’s 2012 demand growth for polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polystyrene (PS), polyvinyl chloride (PVC) […]

Asia Top Ten Chem Companies

By John Richardson SINOPEC’s remarkable rise in the petrochemicals business continued in 2011 as it jumped two places in the ICIS Top 100 ranking, compared with 2010, to finish second overall, behind BASF. This was the result of a 28.9% rise in chemicals sales in local currency and a 34.9% increase when sales were measured […]

The Best Of All Possible Worlds

Source of graph: http://www.businessspectator.com.au/    By John Richardson “Candide, the classic novel of the great French writer Voltaire, is a satirical description of a young man who has been taught that ‘everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds’,” wrote Paul Hodges in this blog post last week. Thus, we have […]

China PE Demand Weakness Continues

 By John Richardson LET’S put this into context: China’s polyethylene (PE) demand grew by 53 percent in 2008-2010. Growth during the first seven months of this year was just 1.7 percent over Januuary-July 2011, according to Global Trade Information Services (GTIS). And when compared with the same seven months in 2010 growth was flat, as the […]

A Game Of Two Halves

Source: ICIS   By John Richardson CHINA’S fibre intermediates industry could end of being a game of two halves in 2012, to use an old football (or soccer for the benefit of our America readers) cliché. The reason is that the first half of the year was characterised by very weak demand as the overall […]

Middle East-China MEG Exports Surge

By John Richardson MONO-ETHYLENE glycol (MEG) exports to China rose to 4.12m tonnes in the first half of this year from 3.38m tonnes during the same period in 2011, according to data from Global Trade Information Services (GTIS). The main beneficiary of the export surge was the Middle East as H1 2012 exports from Kuwait […]

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