By John Richardson THE PICTURE on the left shows the Easter Day Parade in New York in 1900. As you can see, the parade is almost entirely made up of horse-drawn vehicles, bar the red-circled auto. In that year there was a horse manure crisis in the world’s major cities with the attendant problems of […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Why China Will Rapidly Become Paraxylene Self-Sufficient
By John Richardson WOW, what an opportunity. That might be your reaction to the two above charts. On the left, you can see a quite breath taking rise in China’s paraxylene (PX) net imports (imports minus exports). In 2007, China’s net imports were around 2.6m tonnes of PX with last year’s total reaching 14.4m tonnes. […]
China Innovation Success Versus Failure: Electric Vehicles As Case Study
By John Richardson WHAT is the best route to innovation? Pure capitalism with a minimum amount of state interference or state-led investment programmes? The answer is likely to of course vary sector by sector. In some industrial sectors, the capitalist approach will work and in others, heavy state involvement will be more effective. A hybrid […]
China’s Polyethylene Market: Three New Scenarios For 2018-2025
By John Richardson THE above slide underlines the growing complexity surrounding China’s economy, politics, society, environmental policies and trading relationship with the US. I’ve placed this complexity in the context of the implications for the polyethylene (PE) industry. The above slide, and the full explanation below, updates my three scenarios from last September. These new […]
House Of Cards Waiting To Fall: Oil, Equities And The Economy
By John Richardson HOW much of the rise in oil prices since June of last year has been down to the fundamentals of supply and demand versus the hedge funds taking out a record number of short positions? We are about to find out, I feel. There are early signs that the hedgies have started […]
Peak Oil And The Aramco/SABIC Petchems Project
By John Richardson THERE is an important connection between this week’s announcement by Saudi Aramco and SABIC of an MoU for a direct oil-to-chemicals complex and the Tesla Semi electric truck, which is being trialled by DHL and other logistics companies. To fully understand this link, let’s first consider the wider context behind the Tesla truck […]
Three Scenarios For 2018-2025 China Polyethylene Demand Growth
By John Richardson CHINA leads the world in many aspects of renewable energy and has an electric vehicle industry that is receiving the kind of state support that is very probably making foreign competitors green with envy. The explosion of commerce via the mobile internet takes your breath away. Average per person spending on mobile […]
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