By John Richardson THE WONDERFUL poet, T.S. Eliot, wrote “humankind cannot bear very much reality”. One of the realities that I believe many us have failed to come to terms with is that an effective coronavirus vaccine isn’t just a few months away, but is instead several years away. I believe we will eventually get […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Main Street versus Wall Street and the crisis in the developing world
By John Richardson RISING equity and oil markets do not necessarily point to a V-shaped recovery. I know I’ve said this on several previous occasions, but it is critically important that petrochemicals companies and their customers see through the fog. I therefore need to re-emphasise the risks ahead. This useful article from The Guardian presents […]
Coronavirus, impact on the developing world and the scale of demand losses
By John Richardson ALL OF us are struggling to come to terms with a collapse in the global economy that is poised to be worse than the Great Depression – in Britain’s case its deepest recession since the “Great Frost” of 1709. In the US, Wall Street analysts expect the US unemployment rate to still […]
China economy faces huge headwinds with negative full-year growth an inevitability
By John Richardson FRIDAY 17 April is the day when we will get the official Chinese GDP figure for Q1. If it is better than had been anticipated by analysts, the number will have a positive effect on financial markets. But be warned that this doesn’t necessarily mean that in the real, physical world of […]
Petrochemical feedstock purchasing managers: What to think about and what do next
By John Richardson ALL THE old assumptions about how oil, feedstock and petrochemicals markets work need to quite literally be thrown out of the window. No old model or way of thinking will work anymore until the crisis is over. The permanent changes that will take place in markets, and there will be many, is […]
Iran’s alleged attacks on shipping likely a response to US targeting of petrochemicals exports
The following opinions are the personal views of the author and do not express the views of ICIS As tensions in the Gulf build between the US and Iran following the latest incident – the shooting down by Iran of a US military drone – today we run a special guest blog post by Chris […]
China trade war self-reliance push threatens ethylene glycols and PP imports
By John Richardson CHINA WILL do what suits China and not what suits the rest of the petrochemicals and polymers word. And what suits China has radically changed because of the new US approach to international relations. No longer can China depend on the US, or indeed any other country, for the petrochemicals imports it […]
Pressure on US builds as PE exports to China tumble and EU considers tariffs
By John Richardson DONALD TRUMP insisted in early March that he was willing to walk away from a bad trade deal with China. But it now appears that the US is prepared to water down its demands in the interests of getting a deal done. The above chart helps to explain why. The first bar […]
US/China trade war will escalate even if new tariffs are delayed
By John Richardson BY LATER today we may or may not know whether President Trump will proceed with threats to impose a further $200bn worth of tariffs against Chinese imports. This decision is of critical importance to the global chemicals and polymers industries. The go-ahead would mark a major acceleration in the trade war – […]
China tariffs: Quantifying The Impact On US Petchems And Energy
By John Richardson PRESIDENT Trump believes he is winning the trade war with China because of the much greater strength of US stock markets versus their Chinese counterparts. At the start of last week, for example, the two major Chinese indexes had lost a quarter of their value since the start of the year whereas […]
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