The average smartphone now has “more computing power than the computers used during the Apollo era to put the first men on the moon.“ The question facing all of us, is “How will this power be used to disrupt our current business? We can already see some of the early impacts from the transformation taking place: □ Most […]
Chemicals and the Economy
US polypropylene imports rise as China aims for self-sufficiency
Difficult times lie ahead for global polymer markets, as I note in a new analysis for ICIS Chemical Business. In the short-term it is clear that downstream users have, once again, been busy building stock in recent weeks as the oil price rose. But now, finance directors are getting calls from their bankers asking about […]
Plastics lose market share to lightweight steel in US sutos
Plastics consumption in US autos is going down, not up. Steelmakers and glass manufacturers have recaptured ground lost in the years to 2009, and are capturing new sales as auto standards demand lighter-weight cars. And yet, if you had asked polymer suppliers about future demand in the US auto market a few years ago, they […]
What If 3D Printing Was 100x Faster? | TED Talks
Major change is underway in manufacturing and supply chains. China’s slowdown has exposed the myth that its demand would support ever-increasing production of commodities such as metals and oil. As the Financial Times reported yesterday: “Back in the summer, Glencore’s combative chief executive Ivan Glasenberg led a chorus of mining executives in blaming speculative funds for driving […]
China’s auto slowdown to push spare capacity into export markets
Where would the world’s auto industry, and its suppliers, have been without China in recent years? And how will they manage now China’s demand for new cars is slowing fast? These are the question troubling companies and investors as Q3 sales are analysed. The chart above shows the recent history of sales in the Top […]
Supply chain revolution is on the way
Imagine a world where your local garage uses 3D printing to provide you with a new car bumper. You have had a bump in a car park, and just want to get it fixed. Unlike today, there’ll be no more waiting for the part to arrive. The garage will simply download the design from the […]
Europe can win despite age trends
We all know that Europe has an ageing population. Germany and Italy, for example, have median ages of 45 years. And fertility rates have been below replacement levels for 45 years, so the relative number of higher-spending young people is reducing. Instead, there are more and more older people, as life expectancy at age 65 […]
Saudi lets ‘market decide’ on oil prices to maximise local jobs
I was kindly invited last week to give a keynote address at the annual ME-TECH conference in Dubai. Naturally, there was intense interest in my argument that oil prices were most unlikely to recover to the $100/bbl level. Instead, I suggested they would likely return to their long-term historical average of $33/bbl (in $2014). And I argued that this would be good news […]
Turkish plastics markets see imports fall for first time since 2008
Turkey is the blog’s “go-to” market when it wants to confirm trends in global markets. The reason is that Turkey has a very successful downstream industry, but has failed to invest in upstream capacity. This means it is essentially an opportunistic market from a sellers’ viewpoint. During good times, exporters will only divert product from […]
Global chemical operating rates remain well below SuperCycle levels
The latest American Chemistry Council report on global production shows output was up 3% versus September 2012, and just 18% above average 2007 levels. There was a mixed picture in the main Regions: Asia-Pacific was strongest, up 5.9%, with Japan accelerating as the weak yen helped its exports The Middle East continued to slow, and was up […]
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