By John Richardson IF THE US had the same income distribution it had in 1979, the bottom 80% of the population would have $1 trillion -or $11,000 per family – more. The top 1% $1 trillion – $750,000 tonnes – less, according to this FT article by Lawrence Summers. From a dollars and cents perspective […]
Asian Chemical Connections
A tale of two polymers in China: ICIS 8th World Polyolefins Conference presentation
WE HELD our 8th World Polyolefins Conference in Vienna last week where I presented this paper on the China market. Polymers that go into durable end-use applications in China, such as PP, are more vulnerable to credit cycles and the decline in GDP growth than is the case with polymers such as PE. PE is […]
New ICIS podcast: Searching for a better way to forecast China
By John Richardson Click here for my latest interview with Will Beacham, Deputy of ICIS Chemical Business (go to the Download Episode icon, download and listen), where I discuss the great black hole that is always China. The long standing problem remains the unreliability of data for the world’s most important chemicals markets. I […]
A brand new ‘how to” guide for forecasting Chinese polyethylene demand
By John Richardson TIME and again over the last ten years the strength or weakness of Chinese chemicals and polymers demand has taken everyone by surprise. One method of analysis that does hold considerable value as a methodology for forecasting growth might be predictions of future credit flows for some chemicals. The big uptick in […]
China chemicals storage at bursting point indicates no big new economic stimulus
By John Richardson CHEMICALS markets are a great barometer for weather conditions in the wider economy because they are upstream of so many manufacturing industries. We should therefore take close notice of the above chart, from this excellent article by my ICIS colleague, Yvonne Shi. What the chart shows is that by mid-March, weekly inventory […]
China’s vital internet economy cannot be sacrificed for trade deal
By John Richardson THE latest stumbling block for the US/China trade talks is the Chinese reluctance to open up its market to foreign cloud computing companies, curb requirements for companies to store data locally and loosen restrictions on the transfer of data overseas. Many people’s first reaction will be that this is all about the […]
US LLDPE imports threaten to overwhelm European market
By John Richardson THE above chart may end up being an underestimate of the extent to which US linear-low density polyethylene (LLDPE) gains further market share in Europe. But this chart is by itself bad enough. Here’s my logic behind the above chart. thanks to numbers from our our excellent ICIS Supply & Demand Database: […]
Risks for US petrochemicals once again rise as trade war takes another twist
By John Richardson JUST when nearly of all us (including me) thought that a trade deal was about to happen, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has thrown quite a large spanner in the works. “I can’t predict success at this point, but we’re working hard and we have made real progress,” he told a Senate […]
China polyethylene demand forecasting: Forget GDP, look downstream and focus on regions
By John Richardson THE TOP DOWN method of estimating polyethylene (PE) demand growth in China that uses multiples over GDP seems to have major weaknesses (and some of what follows may apply to other chemicals and polymers). The problem is with GDP itself. China’s actual and forecast official GDP growth numbers have long been understood […]
Plastic waste crisis threatens 575m tonnes of global non-recycled PE demand
By John Richardson THE DEMAND growth for oil and other liquid fuels could be more than 50% lower up until 2040 under one scenario presented by BP in its latest Energy Review. This outcome would be the result of substantial growth in polymers recycling over the next 20 years. Oil majors are spending billions of […]