By John Richardson SEPTEMBER is going to be a cruel month when the West returns from the summer holiday period and the extent of damage to chemicals and polymer demand becomes more apparent. In Asia, temporary supply constraints in polyolefins, paraxylene (PX) and styrene monomer (SM) have disguised the damage. These constraints will at some point ease, leading […]
Asian Chemical Connections
The New Normal World In 2021
By John Richardson ALL of us would love to be able to see into the future. Chapter 4 of our new eBook, ‘Boom, Gloom and the New Normal’, does just this. It offers 10 predictions about how the world will look in 2021, which are : 1. Young and old will be focused much more […]
China And Bouncing Dead Cats
By John Richardson Fifty per cent of the blog (John Richardson) is on leave for the next two weeks. Next week Paul Hodges will be posting on Asian Chemical Connections. Paul runs the ICIS Chemicals & Economy blog.Then from the week starting 22 August my fellow ACC blogger, Malini Hariharan, returns from her leave and […]
More On China And Stimulus Hopes
By John Richardson THE fact that the focus has turned to what China might be able to do to once again rescue the global economy reinforces just how important it has become for global growth prospects. For the chemicals industry it seems as if it is one of the few good news stories around. Other […]
Chem Companies And The Oil Delusion
By Nigel Davis and John Richardson On the financial markets it depends when investors feel confident enough to step back into shares. An analyst on Tuesday asked who would be willing to catch a falling knife? But there are already indications of a mini-rally following the slump on global markets of the past week. Stock […]
China To The Rescue Again? Unlikely….
By John Richardson AS the global economy enters a new recession the great hope, as we discussed yesterday, is that China once again steps in with a stimulus package as did in late 2008. But can China risk a repeat of the huge increase in bank lending, a key part of that stimulus package? The answer […]
Place Your Bets – Who Is Right?
By John Richardson DOW Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris said in a 27 July conference call that China’s industrial economy was still doing very well. “They’re managing themselves down very nicely,” he added, pointing to official GDP growth numbers of 8-9%, which translate into chemicals and plastics growth of 12-13%. “We’re not seeing any issue here […]
Polyolefins In “Chaos And Panic”
By John Richardson CHINA’S polyolefin market was in “total chaos and panic” this morning, according to a Singapore-based trader. The Dalian Comodity Exchange’s futures contract in linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) fell a further 5% this morning after declines earlier in the week, according to ICIC news. The weak futures markets caused a supply surge in the […]
Polyolefin End-users Assume The Risk
By John Richardson POLYOLEFIN end-users in China and Southeast Asia began to re-stock in significant numbers last week on anticipation that supply is going to remain tight for the next few weeks at least, the blog has been told. “There was a feeling among the converters that because of scheduled maintenance work in August and […]
The US Debt Crisis And Asian Chemicals
By John Richardson THE consequence of either a failure by the US to raise the debt ceiling and/or a downgrading of the country’s Triple A debt rating would have obviously have serious consequences for the Asian and global chemicals industries. Just how serious nobody really knows as we are in uncharted waters. At the very […]
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