By John Richardson IT CONTINUES to surprise and disappoint me how every minutiae of the recent US petrochemicals outages have been pored over by analysts and yet relatively little attention is being paid to plant operations in China and the real, underlying nature of the country’s petrochemicals demand. This is despite China being far more […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Seeing beyond tight supply: three new scenarios for global HDPE demand in 2021-2025
By John Richardson AT A TIME LIKE THIS, when petrochemicals and polymers prices are surging and margins for some products are also on the rise, it is very hard to cut out all the noise and focus on long-term analysis. Nobody, of course, can afford to ignore the realities of today’s extraordinary markets, probably the […]
China’s “two sessions” in 2021 could easily set the direction of global petchems for decades to come
By John Richardson DO YOU have a dedicated team studying the policy outcomes from this year’s meetings of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) which began last Friday and finish on 11 March? (These annual meetings are commonly referred to as the “two sessions”. For reasons described below, […]
Complexity of global PP demand post-pandemic: Three new scenarios for 2021-2025
By John Richardson THE COMPLEXITY of the economic outlook is such that nobody can say with even the smallest degree of genuine confidence what will happen to global petrochemicals and polymers demand over the next five years. It is hard to know where to start in suggesting scenarios of how the interconnections between today’s four […]
China PMIs point to export slowdown and risk to petchems market rally
By John Richardson WE STILL DON’T have all the data we need to reach a firm conclusion about whether the recent surge in China’s petrochemical prices (see a few examples above) is founded on genuinely strong demand or just stocking-up by buyers in anticipation of further supply-driven price increases. And even where we do have […]
Making all the stuff the world needs in sustainable ways is our defining challenge
By John Richardson YOU ARE a global petrochemicals producer either headquartered in Europe or with major operations in Europe. Stepping up your recycling game must be part of your strategy because of ever-intensifying EU legislation, including the introduction of an €800/tonne charge on plastic waste from January this year. The charge is paid by each […]
China PX imports could fall by 64% in 2021 with styrene imports 59% lower
By John Richardson AS OF yesterday, around 70% of US paraxylene capacity was offline. No less than 67% of US ethylene capacity and 14% of benzene capacity had been impacted by the severe winter weather, meaning of course that US styrene monomer (SM) output will have also been severely curtailed. I could go on, covering […]
China slowdown may be the biggest petchem event in H1, not US and European tight supply
By John Richardson I SUSPECT that the bigger story for the global petrochemicals industry in H1 may not turn out to be the extraordinary production shortages in the US and Europe that are being so well detailed by the ICIS pricing and analytics teams. “Eh, what on earth are you talking about?” you may well […]
Global PP demand to remain resilient in 2021 even if we fail to control the pandemic
By John Richardson THE ABOVE chart, using polypropylene (PP) as an example, neatly crystallises an argument I’ve been making since last August: that the changes in 2020 end-use demand resulting from the pandemic enabled petrochemicals and polymer producers to more than compensate for the overall weakness of economies. Despite the collapse of GDP growth last […]
The new oil shocks: semiconductor supply shortages threaten the global economy
By John Richardson HIGH VALUE semiconductors, which are defined as five nanometres (billionths of a metre) or less in size, have become the new oil – as vital as the black stuff for the workings of the global economy. Semiconductors will, in fact, become even more important as the age of oil comes to an […]