By John Richardson WE will see, as we did in the second half of last year, chemical price recoveries on restocking as inventories are at very-low levels down many of the value chains. It will only take slight improvements in confidence for markets to suddenly bounce-back. Further monetary easing China is likely to buoy confidence post-Chinese […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Wile E Coyote And China
By John Richardson THE blog, a bit like Wile E Coyote who always fails to catch Road Runner, has been amazed in recent weeks at certain people in the chemicals industry who, in public at least, fail to grasp the complexities confronting China’s economy in 2012. We wish that our experience would, at least for some […]
Conventional Thinking Revisited
By John Richardson CONVENTIONAL thinking is that when you have a strong feedstock advantage, you should go ahead and build more petrochemicals capacity on the assumption that growth will eventually be sufficient to absorb volumes. Hence, several more green-field crackers would be announced in the US based on low-cost ethane, butane and propane via shale […]
Placing Faith In Politicians
By John Richardson THE public mood of last week’s Gulf Petrochemicals and Chemicals Association (GPCA) conference in Dubai was resolutely optimistic. But in the corridors, the dining rooms and the coffee bars of the conference hotel, the mood was radically different. Taking, as usual, the polyethylene (PE) business as a reasonable proxy for the polymers […]
The Murkiest Of Outlooks
By John Richardson LACK OF visibility over what the New Year will bring for the global chemicals industry is a key feature of just about every conversation held with industry executives at the moment. Perfect forecasting is, of course, always impossible, but with the Eurozone in deep crisis and even China potentially facing its own bad-debt crisis, […]
Relief Rallies Will Not Be Sustained
By John Richardson FURTHER relief rallies in petrochemical markets that occur over the next few weeks and months will not change the overall direction. Buyers will inevitably run short of stocks down all the value chains and we thus will see some more brief flurries of price rises. Another driver of inventory rebuilding will be recoveries […]
Yuan Devaluation Needs To Be Considered
By John Richardson The “beggar my neighbour” trade wars that many economists feared would erupt after the global financial crisis were delayed thanks to fiscal stimulus. But now politicians will be under increasing pressure to erect trade barriers. “We are seeing a rise in antidumping cases involving chemicals,” a trade lawyer who specialises in the […]
US Chemicals See End Of Profit Boost
By John Richardson THE extent to which the US economy has become distorted in favour of the corporate sector was thrown into sharp relief by this article in the New York Times (the financial sector is another separate, but equally disturbing story). Whether the US can tackle the longer-term factors behind the distortions in favour […]
Why China PE Demand Will Not Grow In 2011
By John Richardson THE blog hears that some industry observers are persisting with the Supercycle theory for petrochemicals based on “decoupling” – i.e. emerging markets will compensate for any new recessions in the West. We find this baffling as evidence points to a lost year of growth in China. The prospects for next year seem […]
Polyolefins In “Chaos And Panic”
By John Richardson CHINA’S polyolefin market was in “total chaos and panic” this morning, according to a Singapore-based trader. The Dalian Comodity Exchange’s futures contract in linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) fell a further 5% this morning after declines earlier in the week, according to ICIC news. The weak futures markets caused a supply surge in the […]
Jump to page: