As always, this blog post expresses my own personal views and these are not the views of ICIS. Thanks By John Richardson TEN HOURS before I wrote this blog post, the South China Morning Post published an article headlined, “Dim prospects for a deal as China and US resume trade war talks”. The newspaper said […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Global manufacturing slowdown: Turn to China’s polypropylene market for your explanation
By John Richardson THEY SADLY still don’t get it. All the clamour yesterday was about declining services and manufacturing growth in the West, with stock markets down until late-in-the-day rallies, probably because investors figured that the Fed will cut interest rates for a third time since the financial crisis later this month. But for the […]
China PE overstocking rises to more than 1m tonnes as exporters continue to flood the market
By John Richardson CHINA is heading for another good year of PE demand growth with estimates from several players of growth at around of 8%. This is in line with our forecast for 2019 growth of 7.7%. But this is clearly not a market growing at 13%, which is what our estimates of local production […]
If Strait of Hormuz closed down: Effect on petrochemicals exports
By John Richardson NEITHER SIDE seems to want a war but at febrile times like this miscalculations could see the US and Iran in a full-scale conflict. Iran might feel it has little more to lose. Its economy is suffering so badly from increased sanctions, especially as a result of the collapse in its oil […]
US petrochemicals export exposure grows at the wrong time in history
As always, the views in this blog post are my own and do not reflect the views of ICIS. Thank you By John Richardson THE US economy is enjoying an unprecedented economic recovery. It has been expanding for the past 122 consecutive months, the longest period in history. But, in my opinion, this is largely […]
Further collapse in China auto sales underlines radical change in petrochemicals business model
By John Richardson HAVE FEEDSTOCK will build has been the route to success for many years in the petrochemicals business. If you have never experienced anything else then a change in the paradigm is very hard to come to terms with. What often instead happens is that a new paradigm is simply rejected in favour […]
Risk of stagflation and recession from drone attack on Saudi oil facilities
By John Richardson ANY major change in US government foreign policy always carries major risks because, for the time being at least, the US remains the world’s No1 economic and geopolitical Superpower. This is the point I’ve been making since January 2017, when it first became evident that Donald Trump’s election rhetoric on confronting China […]
President Trump can only cause major economic damage by beating China, unless he has a time machine
The views in this blog, are, as always, my own personal views and don’t reflect the views of ICIS. Thanks By John Richardson LORD SALISBURY, who served as British Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, understood it was impossible to turn back time to the American Civil of […]
Global PP demand could be 81.5m tonnes less than forecast in 2019-2028 as China Debt Supercycle ends
By John Richardson SOME PEOPLE argue that despite the rapid rise in Chinese consumer debt over the last few years, there is nothing to worry about because consumer debt as a percentage of GDP China still lags behind Western countries. This misses the point and is an example of the dangerous “all is right with […]
China economic stimulus and PP: How global demand could have been 71m tonnes smaller
By John Richardson CHINA came to the rescue of the global economy in 2009. This wasn’t for altruistic reasons as a government study said that unless a huge stimulus programme was launched, 20m Chinese workers would return to the coastal cities from inland China after the Lunar New Year in 2009 without jobs. This would […]