By John Richardson IF YOU had conducted a snap survey of horse and cart manufacturers during New York’s Easter Parade in 1900, I am sure that hardly any of them would have foreseen that 12 years later their businesses would have all but disappeared. Photos show that during the Easter Parade in 2011 automobiles had […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Polymers industry risks sleepwalking into sustainability crisis
GLOBALLY some 75% of aluminium is recycled, 86% of steel and 40% of glass. Why shouldn’t the same levels of recycling eventually apply to some polymers? A good example here is HDPE which is already the second easiest polymer to recycle after PET resins. As sustainability pressures build on the polymers industry, it seems reasonable to assume […]
Sustainability to stop petchems from dominating oil growth…..
….and oil consumption into petchems might even decline because of the plastics rubbish crisis By John Richardson DONALD RUMSFELD famously categorised the future into “known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns”. A new study by the International Energy Agency (IEA) suggests that in the world as it is today – the “known knowns” – petrochemicals […]
China Scrap Plastic Restrictions Create 111 Million Tonne Problem, Opportunity
By John Richardson FOR so many years, developed countries were able to limit the extent to which they had to incinerate, landfill and properly recycle plastic waste by shipping the waste to developing countries, mainly to China. A Science Advances study highlights the extent to which the developed world depended on China as an easy […]
G7 Meeting And The Risks For US Polyethylene Producers
By John Richardson IN All the noise, confusion and economic anxiety following last weekend’s very acrimonious G7 meeting in Canada, you might have failed to notice one very significant detail for the polymers industry. This was the refusal by the US and Japan to sign a plastics charter put forward by Canadian Prime Minister, Justin […]
Polyethylene Margins Face Collapse On Overcapacity
By John Richardson THE consensus view is that whilst global polyethylene (PE) margins have further to fall from their levels so far in 2018 (see the above chart), they will not get that much worse. It is thought that the PE downcycle will be brief and very shallow because of booming global demand for PE […]
How Europe Can Move To Polyolefins Self-Sufficiency
By John Richardson THE CONSENSUS assumption is that Europe will remain a major importer of polyolefins for the foreseeable future. Lack of feedstock advantage is said to be a reason why rising deficits will not be met by local production. But few of the people who attended the 1900 Easter Parade in New York saw […]
China Aims To End Petrochemicals Imports
By John Richardson CHINA HAS changed its strategy for the petrochemicals and polymers where it is in deficit. Previously, the government accepted China’s position as a major importer. Now the plan is to move into balanced or long positions with any surpluses exported via the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Petrochemicals are seen as a […]
Plastic Waste Crisis: Virgin Polymers Growth Will Be Below GDP
By John Richardson AS the demand for transportation fuels declines, oil and refining companies are increasingly viewing petrochemicals as compensation for this lost demand. Their logic is based on the theory that whilst gasoline and diesel consumption is set to fall on sustainability concerns, petrochemicals growth will remain strong. The companies have of course tremendous […]
Single-Use Plastics: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
By John Richardson AN ENVIRONMENTALIST I used to know would often say, “The world is already choking to death on plastics. We don’t need any more. We must shut plastics plants down and stop building new ones.” She was only partly right. Her anger at plastics pollution was often driven more by emotion than solid […]