By John Richardson THE GREATEST rock band of all time put it so well in Circumstances from the seminal 1978 album, Hemispheres. The apposite line in the Rush song in relation to this week’s petrochemicals markets is “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” (translated from French, “the more things change, the more they […]
Asian Chemical Connections
The right analysis of China export data confirms moderate slowdown
By John Richardson STATISTICS, if you do not look at them in the right way, can be very misleading. This is the case with last week’s excitement about the growth in China’s June exports of manufactured goods. On a year-on-year basis, exports grew in dollar terms by 32.2% in June from a year earlier compared […]
Southeast polyolefins demand growth could be negative again in 2021
By John Richardson BEFORE the pandemic, GDP growth rates in the developing world were always higher than in developed economies. And because developing economies had much lower levels of petrochemicals consumption than their rich counterparts, it meant that the multiples over GDP were higher than in the rich word, where consumption was pretty much saturated. […]
China, China and China: the three global polyolefin market drivers during the rest of 2021
By John Richardson TODAY’S SET OF slides, starting with the one above, underlines how a deep and constantly updated understanding of what is happening in China is a defining success factor for polyolefins producers and buyers in every country. Even if you are, say, a converter in Brazil, you must understand, month by month, the […]
As the drift towards a divided world continues, here are some climate change realities
Note that, as always, the views expressed here are personal. Thank you. By John Richardson Executive Summary The big Western energy companies – the International Oil Companies (IOCs) – are selling hydrocarbon assets as they strive to meet more aggressive emissions targets, some of which have been set by environmental activists. The assets are being […]
A deep dive into HDPE and PP: opportunities and challenges for H2 this year and 2022
By John Richardson Executive summary China’s petrochemicals demand boomed in H2 because of the surge in Chinese exports of finished goods that served lockdown needs in developed economies. As lockdowns ease, most of the air has escaped from what was clearly always a bubble. For example, high-density PE (HDPE) demand is set to be 9% […]
The multi-million dollar polymers opportunity: continued big regional price differentials
By John Richardson POLYMER BUYERS outside northeast (NEA) and southeast Asia (SEA) have a big opportunity to save millions of dollars on procurement costs during the rest of this year through purchasing more from the two regions. The opportunity has arisen because I believe that NEA and SEA polymer prices will remain very cheap relative […]
Container freight crisis could continue until or unless the developing world is fully vaccinated
By John Richardson IF YOU WANT to understand when container-freight chaos will fully come to an end, look at the graphic above from Our World in Data, the fantastic free service set up to fight poverty, disease, hunger, pollution and the world’s other ills with the power of numbers. What you can see is the […]
Global polyethylene demand boom likely, increasing the sustainability challenge
By John Richardson IT FEELS LIKE several lifetimes ago. If you recall, way back in November-December 2019 Asian variable cost integrated naphtha-based polyethylene (PE) margins turned negative because of the increase in US capacity. Then in January the following year, deep Asian and Middle East operating rate cuts returned some order to the market. Then, […]
Booming internet sales point towards strong 2021-2025 LLDPE demand growth
By John Richardson ONLINE SALES accounted for 19% of all retail sales in seven industrialised countries in 2020, up from 16% the year before, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Year-on-year online sales growth numbers by country in 2020 included 59% in Australia, 46.7% in Britain and 14.6% […]