By John Richardson POLITICAL populism, or perhaps more accurately demagoguery, is a major concern amongst the great and good who are gathered for this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. They are worried, according to the Financial Times, about the “US building a wall to keep out immigrants, Britain leaving the EU or anybody […]
Asian Chemical Connections
China: Please Don’t Waste More Time
By John Richardson SO much time has already been wasted. Remember that as early as November 2013, you should have started drawing up plans to deal with the new China. That was the point at which I first flagged up the critical turning point. The danger now is that you will waste further time by […]
Oil In Free Fall: What It Means For Petchems
By John Richardson AS crude heads to perhaps as little as $10-15/bbl, you have evaluate the immediate, or first order, effects on the petrochemicals industry and then move to stage two – what it means in the longer term. Right now, you have to worry about the potential for raw material inventory losses up and […]
Global Polyethylene Priced Off US Ethane. Why Not?
By John Richardson WHEN you have spent several billion dollars building a brand new US steam cracker complex, you will of course do everything to maximise operating rates to pay back your debts, even if it means pricing off your advantaged raw-material supply. So why not new US polyethylene (PE) supply priced-off ethane, rather than […]
Your Short Term Guide To Crude Markets
By John Richardson IF you are a petrochemicals sales and marketing executive you probably came back to work after your end-of-year holidays feeling a little bit more optimistic. This was the result of the rebound in oil markets resulting from the Saudi Arabian and Iranian ongoing geopolitical tensions. But, of course, as we all know, […]
Collapsing Crude: What To Do Next
This is business critical now, as the new global economic crisis, centred on China and other emerging markets, gathers momentum. Putting aside the specific monumental problems represented by China, as the Financial Times pointed on Monday, the last decade has seen total emerging market debt rise from $5.4n to $24.4tn. This is equivalent to 90% […]
Saudi Aramco Share Sale: What This Tells US About Oil Prices
By John Richardson SAUDI Arabia’s widely-reported interest in selling a stake in Saudi Aramco is, as the Financial Times quite rightly pointed out last week, may well be the result of oil prices: Any move to proceed with a sell-off could indicate that Saudi Arabia is preparing for a period of low crude oil prices […]
Yuan Devaluation: Next Phase Of The Great Unwinding….
…..China’s purified terephthalic exports could easily rise to 1m tonnes this year. By John Richardson THE next phase of the Great Unwinding, which we have been warning about since 2011, is now well underway. If you have taken note of what the blog has been consistently saying, and as a result changed your approach, you […]
Oil Prices 80% Likely Not To Return To Previous Levels
By John Richardson In yesterday’s world the ongoing geopolitical tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran would have resulted in a sustained rally in oil prices. But this rally lasted barely couple of days as a result of persistently high US oil stocks and more alarming data emerging from China, such as the biggest-ever decline in […]
2016: Trade Tensions, Social Unrest And Deflation
By John Richardson THE world by 2020 – as Paul Hodges and I discussed in Chapter 4 of our 2011 book, Boom Gloom & The New Normal – is going to look very different indeed from what most of us expected: A major shake-out will have occurred in Western consumer markets. Consumers will look for […]
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