By John Richardson THE geopolitical and economic relationship between China and Iran was already very strong even before Donald Trump decertified the Iranian nuclear deal. Now, though, Iran and China could draw even closer. This could pose a major threat to the US polyethylene (PE) industry as it ramps-up capacity. Here, first of all, is […]
Asian Chemical Connections
US Trade Policy Has So Far Bought China More Time…
…..But any number of outcomes remain possible, which underlines the fact that we live in a world of elevated political risk. Chemicals companies must, as a result, build multiple scenarios for future economic growth and trade flows. By John Richardson TIME was a commodity that China didn’t think it had very much of as recently […]
China And Iran: Reshaping Global Polyester Trade
By John Richardson IN TODAY’S world you have to start with political, social and macroeconomic factors to help build your map of global chemicals trade flows over the next ten years. You next need to consider the old standard measures of feedstock availability, access to technology and logistics costs etc. Why are these traditional ways of […]
China and Iran Reshape Oil Market Thinking
By John Richardson ON Monday, I discussed how a generation of analysts have grown up never having experienced a prolonged period of weak economic growth in China. Because these analysts were unable to imagine a sustained downturn in China, they bent their theories to fit a set of facts that have consistently pointed to more […]
The Iran-West Nuclear Deal: An Update
By John Richardson MANY thanks to a good friend of the blog, Mark Mark Mirosevic-Sorgo, managing director of the Singapore-headquartered shipbrokers Braemar Quincannon for what follows – some excellent analysis of what the Iran-West nuclear deal might mean for the petrochemicals business, which follows on from our earlier post. Here are Mark’s comments: It has […]
Asian LDPE Margins Reach New Low
LDPE margins in 2012 By John Richardson NORTHEAST Asian integrated low-density polyethylene (LDPE) margins keep plunging new depths. The margins were at their most negative since ICIS records began in 2000, according to the ICIS Asian PE Margin Report for the week ending 10 August. And the report for the week ending 17 August said that they had fallen even […]
Europe’s “Recovery” Falters
By John Richardson THE mood in European ethylene and polyethylene (PE) markets has changed over the last two weeks, according to my ICIS pricing colleagues, Nel Weddle and Linda Naylor. “A drop in crude oil and naphtha values saw speculation over a decrease for the May (ethylene) contract build this week,” wrote Nel last Friday. […]
Oil Prices And Demand Destruction
By John Richardson THE danger that high oil prices pose to the global economy, and therefore, of course, petrochemicals demand, has been highlighted by a new report from HSBC. It makes the point that quantitative easing, which has led to investors fleeing a weaker dollar into commodities, is a major contributory factor behind the rally […]
Five Essentials For Planners
By John Richardson POLYETHYLENE (PE) industry planners need to factor in the following as they prepare for 2012: 1.) Oil prices are causing demand destruction in the global economy. They could go higher due to the Iranian nuclear crisis. In real dollar terms, as fellow blogger Paul Hodges has written, crude prices were the highest […]
Methanol set for a strong year
By Malini Hariharan Chinese methanol demand growth in 2011 has beaten expectations thanks to rising requirement from the gasoline blending and methanol-to-olefins (MTO)/methanol-to-propylene (MTP) segments. Demand last year is estimated to have expanded by an impressive 30% to reach 26m tonnes, well above earlier forecasts of 19% growth, according to Ken Yin, the methanol editor […]
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