By John Richardson AS crude heads to perhaps as little as $10-15/bbl, you have evaluate the immediate, or first order, effects on the petrochemicals industry and then move to stage two – what it means in the longer term. Right now, you have to worry about the potential for raw material inventory losses up and […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Global Polyethylene Priced Off US Ethane. Why Not?
By John Richardson WHEN you have spent several billion dollars building a brand new US steam cracker complex, you will of course do everything to maximise operating rates to pay back your debts, even if it means pricing off your advantaged raw-material supply. So why not new US polyethylene (PE) supply priced-off ethane, rather than […]
Collapsing Crude: What To Do Next
This is business critical now, as the new global economic crisis, centred on China and other emerging markets, gathers momentum. Putting aside the specific monumental problems represented by China, as the Financial Times pointed on Monday, the last decade has seen total emerging market debt rise from $5.4n to $24.4tn. This is equivalent to 90% […]
China Will Continue To Drive Global Deflation
By John Richardson JANET Yellen has firmly signalled that US interest rates will be raised later this month for the first time since 2006. There will be collateral damage, sure, as I discussed in September, most importantly because of the private-sector debt binge in emerging markets resulting from such a long period of record-low US […]
China Is The World’s New Swing Petchems Producer
By John Richardson CHINA is the new “swing producer” in some global petrochemicals markets, as is the case with US shale oil producers in the global oil market. Let’s start with US shale oil. Here, the Catch 22 situation is that every time global oil prices edge up, the US shale industry will boost production. Breakeven […]
China: New Catch Phrase Backs Up Old Data
By John Richardson OLD data doesn’t always go away. What instead sometimes happens is that people slightly adapt their old growth forecasts to suit changing events. “The rapid growth of China’s service sector and its consumer-led economy” has thus become the new catch phrase used to justify numbers that look only slightly different from those […]
Cheap Oil Will Help You Sell A Million Tonnes Of Ethylene
By John Richardson TOMORROW’S winners will be those who recognise that oil, oil products such as gasoline and diesel and chemicals markets have changed for good. They will understand that this has generated a whole range of new opportunities to make a profit and to sell huge volumes of product. These two things are obviously […]
The Price Of Oil: Another Huge Historical Shift
By John Richardson FIRST came the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 followed by the reunification of Germany and the integration of Eastern Europe in general into the Western way of running the world. Then came China’s rise following the Deng Xiaoping 1992 “Southern Tour” and China’s admission to the World Trade Organisation in 2001. […]
BASF’s Kurt Bock Underlines The Major Changes In China
By John Richardson BASF CEO Kurt Bock has underlined some of the major shifts in the Chinese economy that I have been flagging-up for the last three years. He acknowledged, during a two-day investor event to mark the German chemicals giant’s 150th anniversary, that China’s GDP 2015 growth would likely be below the official estimate And he also […]
Global Chemicals Trade And Swimming Naked
By John Richardson WHAT if your understanding of how the chemicals industry works is no longer valid? This was a theme I covered on Monday when I talked about how the future winners will be those who first of all will be prepared to say, “Look, I was wrong about China”. The next step for […]
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