By John Richardson A SURGE in polyethylene (PE) shipments to China has exerted further stress on a market that continues to perform exceptionally badly. Total PE imports in August (the latest figures availabe) rose to 817,277 tonnes from 681,100 tonnes in July. Low-density PE (LDPE) shipments rose by 27%, high-density (HDPE) by 21% and linear low-density […]
Asian Chemical Connections
China GDP Growth 4-5% in 2013-2020
Canton Trade Fair. Source of picture: http://www.vatti-china.com/News/83.htm By John Richardson IT would be nice to believe that the improved mood at this week’s Canton Trade Fair represents a long-term turnaround in China’s economic direction. This reflects a 9.9% increase in overall exports in September, much higher than the 5.5% median estimate in a Bloomberg […]
Saudi Arabia’s New Export Challenge
Source of picture: Indiaagrifarms By John Richardson Saudi Arabia continues to pursue its vision of adding social value to its hydrocarbon reserves by creating jobs. This involves going further downstream from basic petrochemicals. “The Ministry of Petroleum has said, ‘we want an end to polymer tourism’ – i.e. plastic pellets leaving the Kingdom and […]
The End Of Growth
By John Richardson OUR e-book, Boom Gloom & The New Normal, is a set of ideas meant to challenge conventional wisdom. Some of our ideas will need to be adapted and discarded. But our essential point is that the New Normal represents a way of thinking as much as a set of ideas, because the world has […]
Morgan Stanley Turns Bearish
By John Richardson AN interesting new report from Morgan Stanley underlines what we have been hearing about Chinese chemicals demand. The investment bank writes: “We returned to China and offer a revised message versus our trip last year. Instead of a ‘pause” in growth’, we now see a structural slowdown. China is in the midst […]
Foxconn And China Demographics
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/23/foxconn-taiyuan-riot/ By John Richardson THE riots and a strike at Foxconn factories in China point to demographic changes that have major implications for the country’s economy. China’s one-child policy means that it can no longer depend on a constant flow of compliant workers from the countryside prepared to accept exhausting and monotonous working […]
No More Of This…
By John Richardson THE big hope is that once China returns from its National Holidays (1-7 October), petrochemicals markets will enjoy a big and sustainable recovery. It is not going to happen. Throughout this year, the hope has been that the recovery is just around the corner. People have argued that deteriorating economic data has been […]
China PE Growth Disappoints Again
By John Richardson CHINA’S polyethylene (PE) market, along with probably most of the rest of petrochemicals, continues to disappoint as the above chart illustrates. Overall demand in 2012 (red column) was up by just 1 percent in January-August 2012 compared with the same period in 2010. One, or perhaps a combination of both of the […]
Much Less Of This…..
…….. Source: FT Beyondbrics By John Richardson A fascinating article by the academic Anil K Gupta and consultant Haiyan Wang offers further support to our long-running argument that the future will not necessarily be the same as the future, when it comes to China. The blog continues to be alarmed by the degree of […]
Managing European Volatility
By John Richardson THE blog was in Amsterdam this week for an ICIS training event involving delegates who were European chemicals and polymer buyers. They had one overriding question for us: “How on earth do we manage the extreme volatility in our raw-material costs?” The answer we gave was to not confuse oil-price driven temporary surges […]
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