By John Richardson CHINA FACES another test of its pandemic control capabilities because of new outbreaks in Hebei and Heilongjiang provinces. On Wednesday, China recorded its first coronavirus death in eight months in Hebei. From an economic perspective, the good news, as CNBC reported, was that “Heilongjiang accounted for just over 1% of China’s GDP […]
Asian Chemical Connections
China polyethylene imports set to remain strong in 2021 despite big local capacity growth
By John Richardson IT WAS a tremendous year. China’s 2020 polyethylene (PE) demand growth over 2019 averaged 10% across the three grades. This comprised a 13% increase in demand for high-density PE (HDPE), a 2% decline in demand for low-density PE (LDPE) and a 13% rise in linear-low density PE (LLDPE) demand, according to my […]
Sustainability means reducing carbon emissions as well as plastic waste
By John Richardson THIS IS VERY much a personal plea to our industry about what I see as the biggest challenge we face in 2021 and beyond: carbon and other greenhouse gases. “We need to rebrand climate change as the climate crisis,” a source who works for an oil, gas and petrochemical company has been […]
China’s BRI will go from strength to strength, redrawing global petrochemicals map
By John Richardson CHINA’S Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) is alive and kicking and will, in my view, go from strength to strength as it radically reshapes the global economy, China’s geopolitical relationship with the US and global petrochemical trade flows and investments. Why it is alive and kicking? Because China has no other choice. […]
Assessing global PP prospects next year: seeing the simplicity through all the complexity
By John Richardson IT COULD be very complicated and yet, as the chart above indicates, it might instead by extremely simple. Here I use the example of polypropylene (PP), but similar complexities and one simplicity also apply to the paraxylene and styrene markets and all their downstream derivatives, as I shall discuss in later blog […]
Risks ahead for global polypropylene much greater than for polyethylene
By John Richardson THERE SEEMS to be few risks ahead for the global polyethylene (PE) market over the next five years. The internet sales boom, despite all the talk about using less plastic for sustainability reasons, promises to provide strong support for consumption. The average internet sale is dropped 17 times before delivery, providing a […]
Polyethylene demand boom should not obscure focus on major changes in industry fundamentals
By John Richardson IT WASN’T supposed to be like this. We firstly had the unprecedented increases in global capacity that threatened a deep downcycle. Then we had the accepted wisdom, a wisdom I bought into, that the pandemic would dig a giant hole in polyethylene (PE) demand. As recently as March, few producers would have […]
Sustainability, the pandemic, demographics and geopolitics – how petchem companies respond will define their success
Just to stress again that this blog represents my personal views and not those if ICIS. By John Richardson YOU WILL NEED to constantly debate the details of the megatrends as they will very often change entirely. And whilst today’s four megatrends – sustainability, the pandemic, demographics and geopolitics – will remain unchanged, their relative […]
Exporters of PP and SM to China seem to have options other than shutdowns, but not PX exporters
By John Richardson DIFFICULT choices lie ahead for exporters of polypropylene (PP), styrene monomer (SM) and paraxylene (PX) to China. From next year onwards, the country’s imports will start to decline and by 2023-2025 complete self-sufficiency may be reached in all these products. Just how significant this shift will be for global markets, we can […]
China polyethylene and ethlyene glycols in 2021: country-by-country outlook for exporters
By John Richardson CHINA’S polyethylene (PE) imports could be at either 19.8m tonnes in 2021 or 16.8m tonnes, as I discussed on Wednesday. The above chart illustrates what effect these best- and worst-case outcomes would have on imports from China’s 12 biggest trading partners, assuming they win the same percentage market shares of the total […]