The opinions in this blog post are, as always, my own and do not reflect the views of ICIS By John Richardson DONALD TRUMP insisted in a tweet last Friday that the US economy didn’t need China, “and frankly we would be better off without them.” He called on US companies to pull out […]
Asian Chemical Connections
How the Millennials and “less is more” are destroying petrochemicals demand
By John Richardson WE HAVE gone beyond the point of no return because of a major societal shift. Millennials, and a good number of a lot older people such as myself, have come to believe that “less is more”, that the environmental cost of throwaway consumption is intolerable. Take this comment from this Wall Street […]
How we could all end up as losers from President Trump’s trade policies
The views below are my own, and, as always, do not express the opinion of ICIS By John Richardson REGARDLESS of your politics you should worry about Donald Trump’s claim that the trade war is hurting the Chinese economy and that the US is therefore winning. For reasons I shall is explain in this post, […]
President Trump’s tariff concession adds to uncertainties as we drift towards a bipolar world
The following opinions are my personal views, and, as always, do not express the views of ICIS By John Richardson PRESIDENT TRUMP could have blinked at the prospect of Christmas shoppers punishing him at the ballot box for the increased cost of gifts beneath their trees. This is what I think is behind his decision […]
China PE overstocking at above a million tonnes as Beijing struggles to boost economy
By John Richardson EVEN IF our base case growth rate* for PE in China in 2019 proves to be correct the H1 data still suggest excess inventories of 755,000 tonnes (click here for a post explaining the methodology). As the China economy further decelerates due to the trade war and domestic economic problems, I believe […]
China trade war duties on US LDPE “very likely” as global recession concerns grow
By John Richardson IT IS very likely that China will impose 25% additional imports duties on LDPE in response to the latest US escalation of the trade war, market sources have told me this week. This would add to the 25% duties that have been in place on US HDPE and LLDPE cargoes since August […]
US declaring China currency manipulator risks 10.8m tonnes of global petrochemicals demand
By John Richardson BY PLAYING with fire President Trump has very likely set the forest on fire. Today’s decision by the White House decision to declare China a currency manipulator makes a global recession even more likely than it was yesterday, when I discussed the negative economic results of the president’s plan to levy […]
Trump latest tariffs risk global recession, 3.8m tonne lost PE demand
By John Richardson PRESIDENT Trump is playing with fire as a result of his plan to impose 10% import tariffs on a further $300bn of Chinese imports. This threatens to push the world into a global recession. (I hope you took notice when I warned you to expect very little from last week’s trade talks). […]
BASF’s shocking Q2 results should have been no shock at all
y John Richardson NOBODY should be surprised by the BASF results for Q1 2019 where, on a year-on-year basis, EBIT was down by 71%. This was largely because of events in China. The roots of these very poor results, with many more likely to follow from other chemicals companies, can be traced back to H1 […]
Multiple trade disputes and the risks for the US PE industry
By John Richardson FALLING out with a trading partner as big as China is problematic enough. But the US is also out of sorts with the EU, India and Turkey and is at risk of ending up in a dispute with Vietnam. The row with China is far from being resolved despite the G20 truce. […]