By John Richardson THE OMICRON outbreak is piling further pressure on already extremely stressed supply chains as Europe struggles to cope with the highly infectious variant. As my ICIS colleague, Tom Brown, said in this ICIS Insight article, tapping into market intelligence from our pricing editors: “The supply chain pressures that have dogged the European […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Deflation could already be here: implications for PE and PP
By John Richardson ONCE AGAIN, PLEASE don’t say I didn’t warn you. The switch from inflation to disinflation or deflation is already well underway, a lot sooner than my prediction of Q1 next year. American retailers, having spent months scaring customers with stories of shortages, were trying to lure them into stores with offers of […]
China 2021 polyethylene demand could be 1.9m tonnes lower than last year
By John Richardson WE NOW HAVE enough data to make some firm conclusions about what the Chinese polyethylene (PE) market will have looked like in 2021. We can also make some early estimates about the shape of the market in 2022. The slide below details what the ICIS apparent demand data for January-October 2021 (our […]
Global polypropylene could also move from inflation to deflation in Q1 next year
By John Richardson WE ALL NEED TO ASK ourselves whether the global patterns in polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) pricing and margins that we have seen over the last year represent a long-term divergence in global markets or something temporary. As discussed on Monday, when I examined linear low-density PE (LLDPE) market (and the same […]
Global polyethylene could move from inflation to deflation by as early as Q1 2022
By John Richardson THE BALTIC DRY INDEX, one of the excellent barometers of overall economic activity, was late last week at its lowest level since June on a slowing Chinese economy, easing congestion at Chinese ports and a fall in Chinese coal imports (more on this in a moment). “The index was around 1,000 a […]
Global polyethylene supply could lengthen, becoming a buyers’ market, sooner than many people think
By John Richardson RARELY, IF EVER, have events felt so bafflingly complex in the global polyethylene (PE) business. Take as an example the chart below listing the factors that have reshaped demand since the beginning of the pandemic. Let’s go through these factors one by one, box by box. It is reasonable to assume, starting […]
Pandemic’s third wave seems unlikely to damage global petrochemicals demand
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 […]
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. […]
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% […]
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