By John Richardson ONE OF THE GREATEST achievements of the last 30 years has been the fall in the number of people living in extreme poverty. In 1999, 1.9bn of the world’s population were living on less than $1.90, the Word Bank’s definition of extreme poverty. Despite setbacks caused by the pandemic, this had […]
Asian Chemical Connections
China bans on single-use plastics move forward with major recycling investments likely
By John Richardson THIS EVENT slipped under most people’s radar in the midst of the pandemic crisis: on 10 July, multiple provinces across China (we don’t know which provinces and how many provinces) were told to submit plans by mid-August on how they were going to implement a central government crackdown on plastic waste. I […]
The US places heavy bets on LLDPE at a time of demand erosion
By John Richardson IT IS a remarkably single product-focused strategy given the exposure of linear-low density polyethylene (LLDPE) to demand erosion from the global plastics rubbish crisis. Looking across the three grades of PE, the US will end up with a 33% global share of net exports (exports minus imports) amongst the world’s net export […]
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’s time poor, cash rich will want less PP and not more
By John Richardson LAST month I gave you the downside of urbanisation in China and how this could result in 7m tonnes of lower polyethylene (PE) demand in 2030 than we assume in our base case. A very good contact of mine has however pointed out this fascinating article from the World Economic Forum on […]
Polyethylene versus polypropylene: Expect the unexpected
By John Richardson IT IS supposed to be a tale of two polymers with these very different fortunes: Whereas our base case assumes that global polypropylene (PP) operating rates will average a healthy 89% in 2018-2025, we see polyethylene (PE) capacity utilisation at 83%. The higher the operating the stronger the profitability. The PP industry […]
China Urbanisation Policies Threaten 7m Tonnes Of PE Consumption
By John Richardson CONTINUED urbanisation in China, it is often said by petrochemicals and polymer company CEOs, guarantees further strong demand growth for their products. But just because a statement is repeated on many occasions by very senior people during investor conference calls and at big public conferences doesn’t automatically make it true. This is […]
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 […]
Why China Can Become Major Polypropylene Exporter By 2025
By John Richardson ONE of the main topics of debate in the global polypropylene (PP) business is whether or not China will become entirely self-sufficient. The pessimists, or rather I would say the realists, go a step further. They believe that there is every chance that China will become a significant exporter. The final result […]