By John Richardson EVER SINCE the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, and the last great geopolitical struggle came to an end, the petrochemicals business has benefited from a highly globalised world. Product has flowed, almost seamlessly, from one country to another in ever greater volumes. Sure, it has never been the case of feedstock advantage […]
Asian Chemical Connections
China petrochemicals demand boom remains heavily reliant on finished goods exports
By John Richardson THERE will be a lot of official data released about booming consumer spending during China’s Golden Week and National Day holidays, which run from 1-8 October. The numbers, when they emerge later this month, will be broadly seen as further evidence that China’s recovery is firmly on track. This will add to […]
Petrochemicals and autos: the last 50 years provide little guide to the future
By John Richardson IT HAS been an amazingly half a century of innovation for the petrochemicals industry. The light-weighting of automobiles, combined with booming demand for autos, has delivered many billions of dollars of value to companies. The latest figures from the American Chemistry Council, which only cover North America, give a pointer towards the […]
Rate of recovery hugely reliant on effectiveness of government policies
By John Richardson UNLESS MORE action is taken by developed countries to help counter the impact of the pandemic in developing countries, we could see a bifurcated world. The developing world might suffer a lost generation of growth as the developed world fully recovers. But this, in my view, is a highly unlikely scenario. Failure […]
Developing world polymers demand unlikely to see quick rebound
By John Richardson THIS IS a tragedy in the genuine sense of the word, not just in the so-often misused sense of the word : a study earlier this year by the United Nations University said that as many as 580m additional people could be pushed into extreme poverty by the pandemic, or about 8% […]
China’s policy dilemma: raising local demand while protecting exports
By John Richardson IN THIS Western-centric world, a huge amount of ink is split over the consequences of US presidential elections and this year’s the poll, which as always takes place in November, is no exception. The result will of course have huge global economic and geopolitical consequences. But I believe that the outcomes […]
Ah, I see: China’s booming demand mystery a little closer to being solved
Note that all the data comparisons below are on a year-on-year basis By John Richardson THE PROVERBIAL light bulb came on early last month, thanks to this article from Trade Data Monitor (TDM) which analysed China’s strong July exports and made the point that they were driven by a big change in lifestyles. Many […]
The China polyester mystery continues in a world turned upside down
By John Richardson SOMETHING very strange is happening in China’s polyester industry which has enormous implications for the global industry, as ICIS data continue to point towards strong local apparent demand growth for paraxylene (PX) and monoethylene glycols (MEG) despite seemingly weak downstream fundamentals. The world “enormous” is no hyperbole because China completely dominates exports […]
China will struggle to boost local retail sales during rest of 2020 with export outlook uncertain
By John Richardson IF IT were easy, then there would be an oversupply of owners of large yachts in Monte Carlo. But understanding China has never been easy and has become a great deal harder because of the pandemic. This makes “I really don’t know” the only honest answer to the question of what is […]
The pandemic and petrochemicals demand: a whole new approach is required
By John Richardson MONITORING demand has never been harder because of the pandemic. One of my colleagues on the ICIS Pricing team was, for example, last week told by one of his reliable contacts that polyethylene (PE) demand was good, bad or indifferent. It used to be that if you talked to the people you […]