By John Richardson WE MUST BE careful here. If 2020 taught is anything, it is that China has the capability of stunning everybody with the speed of its economic growth, even against a backdrop of a much slower global economy. Few people imagined, including myself, that in the dark days of March last year, China […]
Asian Chemical Connections
China quarter-on-quarter data finally confirms loss of growth momentum
By John Richardson WE WILL CONTINUE to stumble around in the dark unless we gain a much better understanding of the new variables that are shaping the petrochemicals business. As I’ve been discussing since last August, one of the grey areas is demand and how it has been reshaped by the pandemic, on top of […]
China government focus changes to reigning in credit, controlling debts
By John Richardson CHINESE government statements have always been incredibly important for fathoming the country’s economic direction and this year will be no exception. We need to constantly parse the tone of statements to sense changes in direction. “The current complex and severe international environment have added new uncertainties, the domestic economic recovery is not […]
Iran may gain 48% of total China HDPE imports, 85% of LDPE imports by 2025 because of new deal
By John Richardson IRAN and China earlier this month signed a wide-ranging economic and security agreement that has been under negotiation for five years. The deal involves $400bn of investment in the overall Iranian economy with as much as $280bn of spending on oil, gas and petrochemicals. Before I crunch the data and demonstrate how […]
China early data points to 42% fall in 2021 HDPE imports
By John Richardson China’s high-density polyethylene (HDPE) imports in 2021 look as if they might collapse versus last year, according to the early data for this year (see the above chart). The same could apply to polypropylene (PP) and styrene monomer (SM) imports, as I discussed earlier this week. The potential 40% decline in HDPE […]
China early data point to PP imports collapsing by 78% this year with SM 67% lower
By John Richardson CHINA’S apparent demand for polyethylene, polypropylene (PP), styrene monomer (SM) and paraxylene fell during the first two months of this year versus November-December 2020. I have yet to crunch the data on the rest of the major products, but I suspect the trend will be the same. (This comparison is the only […]
China’s environmental policies: scenarios essential for impact on local and global petrochemicals
By John Richardson WE MUST develop very nuanced, broad ranging and constantly updated scenarios about what could happen in China over the next 20 years. Special scenario teams need to be set up by petrochemicals companies that focus only on China because the country will remain by far the most important petrochemicals market. China will […]
China petrochemicals and the lack of logical basis for the 2021 boom theory
By John Richardson IF YOU DO a Google search, you will find a lot of articles on China’s economic recovery. Click on the links, spend some time reading them in detail, and you will discover a common narrative: China’s recovery remains on track this year. But you will not find the data that […]
Seeing through the lack of data: new scenarios for global LLDPE demand in 2021-2025
By John Richardson WE DON’T HAVE THE DATA sets nor the data tools to work out what is going to happen next with any acceptable degree of reliability. Until or unless we develop the necessary data sets and tools we will remain, in my view, all at sea about the direction of petrochemicals demand. The […]
China’s data gaps mean we must plan for multiple petchems demand, import outcomes
By John Richardson WE ARE STILL waiting for detailed data on China’s petrochemicals and polymers imports in January and February 2021. This is just one of many China data holes for January-February. We do know, however, that overall imports of plastics in primary form rose in volume by 8% in January-February 2021 versus the same […]