By John Richardson DO NOT underestimate the ability of public opinion to reshape markets. That’s my first warning to any polymers industry executive out there who thinks future success will come from a business as usual approach. Public anger at the environmental damage being caused by today’s approach to disposing of single-use plastics is going […]
Asian Chemical Connections
China Polyethylene: Inland Growth And Internet Sales Versus Threat From Sustainability
By John Richardson THE ABOVE CHART uses the same approach I used in late February for my post on per capita polypropylene consumption in China. In this case, my focus is on polyethylene (PE): The latest available IMF data for per capita income levels by province and other administrative region in China is for 2016 […]
How To Replace Billions Of Dollars Of Polymer Sales Lost To New Recycling Rules
By John Richardson THE EU’s requirement that all plastics packaging must be recyclable by 2030 will result in billions of dollars in lost sales across the 28 members of the EU. To give you an example, my preliminary guesstimate suggests that some €6bn of EU sales could be lost in LLDPE alone in the 12 […]
China’s Plastic Clean-Up Threatens Polymer Growth Assumptions
Last week saw the release of an EU Plastics Strategy which aims to make packaging plastics 100% recyclable in the EU by 2030. China is also moving in the same direction, as I discuss below – and this doesn’t just apply to its well-publicised ban on imported scrap plastic. Domestically-produced plastic waste is also being […]
Plastic Waste: The Billion Dollar Threat To The Global Polymers Business
By John Richardson THE global scale of the plastics waste challenge is illustrated by the above chart from my blog post last October. Using our ICIS Supply & Demand Database, examining the production of of 11 major polymers, some 4bn tonnes of plastic has ended up in the natural environment since 1978. Estimates like this […]
Peak Oil And The Aramco/SABIC Petchems Project
By John Richardson THERE is an important connection between this week’s announcement by Saudi Aramco and SABIC of an MoU for a direct oil-to-chemicals complex and the Tesla Semi electric truck, which is being trialled by DHL and other logistics companies. To fully understand this link, let’s first consider the wider context behind the Tesla truck […]
China, China And China: The Three Drivers Of Global Styrene
By John Richardson THE DATA on global polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) undermine the notion of booming emerging markets demand. In reality, it is only Chinese demand that has boomed and not the emerging markets as a whole. And when you look at all the commodity chemicals and polymers value chains, the headline data tells you […]
Life Cycle Of Plastics Packaging Demand And Internet Sales
By John Richardson THERE is a huge amount of excitement out there right now about booming internet sales and how this also boosting packaging demand and so sales of polymers such as polyethylene (PE), polypropylene and polystyrene. China is, not surprisingly, the biggest growth market. Demand for foamed PE is, for example, booming in China […]
Europe’s Rubbish Solution
By John Richardson SHALE gas may never be a significant energy solution for Europe because the political challenges are just too great, as this article in the Financial Times points out.For example, the FT writes that: Fracking is banned in France and the Netherlands. The Dutch government scrapped a parliamentary proposal to allow fracking […]
Recycling Dip Boosts China By 8-10 Percentage Points
It can be a dirty business…. Source of picture: www.China-environmental-news-blogspot.com By John Richardson THE sharp drop in plastics recycling in China has added 8-10 percentage points to virgin polyolefin demand growth in 2009, estimates a major Asian producer. “It’s a much bigger than we had anticipated and we’re of course evaluating whether recycling […]
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