What would it take to return global operating rates to the very healthy 1992-2023 average of 88%? Global capacity would have to grow by an average of around 2m tonnes a year versus our base case of 6.2m tonnes a year.
Asian Chemical Connections
China’s demographic crisis: Implications for polymers demand
The light blue bars show the impact of a Dire Demographics scenario on China’s polymers demand
Global styrene markets reflect permanent changes in the chemicals landscape
DON’T just back and wait for markets to correct themselves
Stop wasting time waiting for the end of the downcycle
THE TEN REASONS why this isn’t a standard chemical industry downcycle
Don’t put sustainability in a broom cupboard in the basement
How the chemicals world could re-align as sustainability becomes a new route to competitive advantage
Petrochemicals three years from now: A shrinking global market?
MORE THAN 70% of global polyethylene demand is at risk from ageing populations, climate change and geopolitics.
China’s petrochemicals capacity growth: A new normal of much greater uncertainty
UNDERSTANDING what was going to happen next with petrochemicals capacity additions in China used to be easy. Now we are in a world of muddle and ambiguity.
China’s ever-more sophisticated chemicals market could entirely serve itself
What’s your Plan B if China were to also become self-sufficient in specialities as well as commodities?
A Personal View of the New Petrochemicals World
What follows is, as always on the blog, a personal view of how I see the petrochemicals world developing. There are no right answers, and the debate is the thing. That’s how we move forward together.
Chemicals, sustainability and the new industrial revolution
Blood bags, syringes, disposable hospital sheets, gowns and medicine packaging. Modern-day medicine, which has greatly extended the quantity and quality of our lives, would be impossible without the plastics industry.
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