By John Richardson WE MUST BE careful here. If 2020 taught is anything, it is that China has the capability of stunning everybody with the speed of its economic growth, even against a backdrop of a much slower global economy. Few people imagined, including myself, that in the dark days of March last year, China […]
Asian Chemical Connections
China’s PP imports in 2021 could fall by as much as 53% over last year
By John Richardson TODAY I get closer to completing my outlooks for China’s petrochemical and polymer imports in 2021 by analysing what might happen in polypropylene (PP). Later this week or next week I will complete the picture by looking at styrene monomer. Previously, I examined polyethylene (PE), where this year there is very little […]
China paraxylene imports may be just 6.6m tonnes in 2021 – 58% lower than only three years ago
By John Richardson PLEASE DON’T say I didn’t tell you. Further big declines in China’s paraxylene (PX) imports seem likely in. We could also see less dramatic falls in polypropylene (PP) and styrene monomer (SM) imports this year, which I shall detail in later posts. But here a I shall focus on PX. This year’s […]
China may next year import 66% less PP from South Korea than in 2020, 72% less styrene from Saudi Arabia
By John Richardson All the numbers that follow are my estimates only and are not the official ICIS numbers. But I hope what follows helps you with your planning process for 2021. Our ICIS Supply & Demand Database is a key tool for your planning process, as all the scenarios below would have been impossible […]
Why history, culture and politics will give you the petrochemicals answers you need
By John Richardson ALBERT EINSTEIN knew a thing or two about data, including searching for entirely new data sets that led to a revolution in our understanding of space and time. Nevertheless, he once wrote this on a blackboard: “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” Hear, […]
China’s booming polypropylene demand in 2020 and what could happen next year
By John Richardson IT has been a year that just about nobody in the Asian polypropylene (PP) industry had expected back in the dark days of April. At that time, negative demand growth in China during 2020 seemed a strong possibility. What instead has taken place is a solid recovery in the Chinese economy following […]
China’s shift towards styrene self-sufficiency adds to pressure for new petrochemicals business model
By John Richardson IT IS dead simple, apparently. All you have to do is find alternative geographical markets to China as China moves towards petrochemicals self-sufficiency and everything will be fine. In my view there is just one slight problem with this commonly- expressed argument: The data. The data on every product show that China […]
South Korea: No Room For Complacency
By John Richardson I have long loved South Korea, ever since I first visited the country back in the late 1990s. The sheer guts, determination and get-up-and-go of South Koreans have to be admired, especially when you put this into the context of the almost total devastation inflicted by the Korean War. And South Korea continues […]
South Korea’s Demographic Challenges
By John Richardson THE blog has been long on South Korea ever since its first visit in 1997. Its economic achievements since the horrors of the Korean War are nothing short of amazing. Bereft of natural resources, all it has had to rely has been its intellectual capital and, wow, look at how it has […]
Searching For A Manufacturing Revival
By John Richardson WALK into any airport bookshop and you will see shelf after shelf full of management and “get rich quick” books. How many books are you likely to see on inventing things and manufacturing? Hardly any….. The danger is that whilst we busy ourselves with pouring spurious knowledge into our heads about how […]
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