By John Richardson THIS excellent chart highlights the lingering effects of the coronavirus outbreak in China on the global container freight industry. Now, because the crisis has gone global, we must expect the disruptions to intensify: Many containers will be stuck in the wrong places, unable to find cargoes to move to where they are […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Sustained collapse in oil prices: Effect on petrochemicals and the global economy
By John Richardson IT COULD be a game of chicken designed to pull Russia back to the negotiating table and the Saudis might win the game. This is how you could be interpreting the Saudi decision to raise oil production and offer aggressive discounts to customers following last week’s failure by OPEC to agree cuts […]
Coronavirus: No recovery in petrochemicals likely until end-2020 and here are ten reasons why
By John Richardson HERE IS your print-out-and-keep 10-point guide, summarising the key themes I’ve covered over the last two weeks with important updates. I hope this helps your petrochemicals business in its planning process. Before we begin, I am afraid to say that we have probably lost a year’s worth of demand growth.Growth likely to […]
Coronavirus: China ethylene glycols demand could fall by 1.2m tonnes as imports also diminish
By John Richardson IN GEORGE ORWELL’S magnificent parody of communism, Animal Farm, he writes; “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others’”. So it goes in petrochemicals value chains. All the chains have been affected by the coronavirus outbreak. They all share the commonality of a big loss over at least […]
Decline of 2.1m tonnes in 2020 global polypropylene demand now seems best possible outcome
By John Richardson EVERY DAY that goes by when China is not entirely back at work the economic damage is multiplying. It already looks as if the best China can hope for is real as opposed to politically manufactured 2020 GDP growth of around 2.25%. And that assumes a rapid economic rebound from Q2, which […]
Global PVC demand could fall by 1.1m tonnes as coronavirus crisis becomes global
By John Richardson YOU CANNOT stimulate economic activity when factories and offices need to be shut down, airlines are forced to cancel thousands of flights and conference organisers are compelled to cancel events. This is the dilemma that central bankers face, raising major doubts over whether “buy on the dip” will continue to work in […]
Coronavirus: Global polypropylene demand in 2020 could fall by 2.6m tonnes over last year
By John Richardson SOME GOOD news might be that official Chinese state media announced that the number of coronavirus cases outside Hubei province had up until Saturday fallen for 12 days in a row. But given the difficulty of diagnosing the disease, and last week’s sharp upward revision in Chinese estimates of the total number […]
Coronavirus threatens 2.9m tonnes of China PP demand as uncertainties increase
By John Richardson THE RUMOURS travelled around my contacts, and I am sure many of your contacts, for several weeks that China was undercounting the number of coronavirus cases (the disease has now been given a name – COVID-19). Someone said to me last week, “People go to hospital, get an initial positive diagnosis, are […]
Coronavirus: Global polyolefins cutbacks seem inevitable on major China demand loss
We all hope that the coronavirus outbreak will soon be brought under control, that’s the main thing, and my sympathies and concerns go out to my good friends and everyone else in China. It also important to also think, as a secondary and less important issue, of the business risks, and I hope my latest […]
Why coronavirus will be a much bigger deal for petrochemicals than SARS
By John Richardson THE WORLD was very different in 2003 when SARS struck. Back then, China accounted for just 4% of the global economy but last year this had risen to 17%. The US was also the biggest source of global economic growth 17 years ago. China has since overtaken the US to become the […]