By John Richardson IF YOU only read the financial press and follow the stock markets you can be entirely forgiven for thinking that China’s economy has turned around as a result of huge injection of economic stimulus. But anyone whose job it is to follow petrochemicals markets should know that the jury is still out […]
Asian Chemical Connections
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 […]
US foreign policy reshaping global oil markets at major cost to the US
Guest blogger today is again Ajay Parmar in the third of his posts. He is a chemical engineering professional with 5 years of industrial experience in oil refining, primarily in a process engineering capacity. He joined ICIS in 2018 as a Senior Analyst and currently works on developing a price forecasting model for crude oil and […]
China’s January credit surge: Case for one-off panic, no new global economic boom
By John Richardson CHINA’S HUGE January credit increase might be the start of a new round of major credit-fuelled economic stimulus, was the theory I put forward last week. This would lead to a rebound in global growth and a surge in worldwide chemicals demand as global growth is about these three things: China, China […]
China’s ageing population could cost 240 million tonnes of polymers demand
By John Richardson THERE was nothing miraculous about the “Chinese economic miracle”. What instead happened was a lucky coincidence of economic reforms and lots and lots of babies. The reforms were led by Deng Xiaoping who in 1978 decided to open up the Chinese economy. But the opening up would not have delivered significant benefits […]
Surge in China lending could lead to global economic rebound, stronger chemicals demand
By John Richardson CHINA may have pressed the panic button again. If the extraordinary rise in January lending is sustained, this would represent the third time in recent history that China has opened the floodgates on new credit. A sustained upswing in lending would obviously result in stronger chemicals pricing, margins and demand. Further upward […]
Search for votes in 2020 US presidential battleground states may wreck trade deal
By John Richardson A GOOD WAY of deciding whether or not the likely US/China trade deal will hold is to take a close look at the demographics in 15 potential battleground states in the 2020 presidential election. As of 2016, just ahead of the last presidential poll, David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report estimated […]