By John Richardson THE signs are ominous as they have been since the beginning of the crisis. Intuitively, it still feels as if we are heading for some major macroeconomic problems. As Andrew Liveris, CEO of Dow Chemical, put it last week: “Overall, the world continues to recover to pre-recession levels. However, with inflation concerns […]
Asian Chemical Connections
A Toxic Combination: Sentiment And Oil Prices
By John Richardson Yesterday we suggested that demographic challenges in the West, the strain on resources resulting from rising consumption in emerging markets and rising inflation should heavily feature in discussions at this week’s World Economic Forum in Davos. Chemical industry leaders who could be attending include Mohamed Al-Mady, CEO of SABIC, Andrew Liveris, CEO […]
Edgy And Nervous CEOs In Deep Contemplation
Davos 2011 Source of picture: eacci.net By John Richardson THE edginess and nervousness of Asian polyolefin markets we talked about last week is likely to be part of the mindset of any chemicals company CEO right now. As my colleague Nigel Davis wrote about last week, the industry’s financial results for 2010 are […]
Polyolefin Producers Maintain Their Control
Source of picture: Dallhouse University, Canada By John Richardson THE incredibly smart way in which polyolefin producers have managed production since the great collapse of September 2008 continues to defy what appear to remain some very uncertain, and some cases weak, macro-economic fundamentals. As we discussed on Wednesday, China faces a significant demand-growth gap […]
A Repeat Of The 2008 Collapse On The Cards
“Only another thousand or so years to go…..” Source of picture: Atlantic Council By John Richardson HERE we go again, eh? Yes, as rising crude-oil prices and overall inflation pose a major threat to the petrochemicals industry. Nothing the blog has read or heard over the last two weeks has given […]
Fears Rise Over China Long-term China Demand Dip
By John Richardson ANXIETY seems to be growing in the chemical industry over China’s plan to migrate its economy away from export dependence towards greater domestic consumption. The sense of nervousness picked up in several conversations with company executives over the past few weeks indicates how much is at stake for an industry that has […]
Bayer Material Science Outlines Global Strategy
Patrick Thomas Source of picture: Bayer Material Science By John Richardson SUCCESS in chemicals – whether you are into commodities or specialities – is largely about eking out maximum value from every single molecule in all the important markets. The almost obsessive focus on China and other emerging markets might give the impression that […]
Gaping Chasm Between Effective, Real Op Rates
By John Richardson A gaping chasm has opened up over the past 18 months between nameplate capacities and effective operating rates, resulting in much greater focus on the latter. It isn’t easy and it is getting ever-more complicated to assess the actual volumes likely to hit markets. There is a considerably well-supported school of thought […]
Overconfidence The Bisk Risk For 2011
By John Richardson OVERCONFIDENCE is perhaps the biggest risk for 2011 as a result of sales volumes that have this year exceeded even the most wildly optimistic forecasts. The danger is that we have yet to see the worst of this current petrochemicals cycle. Companies and chemicals analysts might have got a little ahead […]
China Polyolefins Divorced From Fundamentals
A permanent separation? Source of picture: edu.com By John Richardson IT IS pretty easy to predict specific events that will cause declines in polyolefins pricing in China next year thanks to the big role that macro-economics now plays in setting the market. No longer do you need to mainly sweat over increasingly difficult polyethylene […]
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