By John Richardson PRESERVING working capital is the key for chemicals industry purchasing managers and finance directors as we head into what I believe will be a global recession. The problem for chemicals companies is having the confidence to ignore conventional opinion which time and again is wrong as it is so often driven by […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Major crude downside and upside risks for petchems
By John Richardson ONE of the biggest risks for petrochemicals producers has once again become oil prices as we enter a period of weaker demand and longer supply versus the potential for a major geopolitical disruption to supply. Crude prices could easily rise to more than $100/bbl on a geopolitical clash between the US and […]
Negative Asian polyolefins margins show need for recession planning
ASIAN PE and PP spreads turned negative in October this year for the first time since the same month five years earlier. As spreads turned negative it seems certain that margins would have been in deeper negative territory as spreads don’t account for the full costs of production. Back in October 2014 the sharp fall […]
President Trump’s “very good” call with President Xi: Nothing changes
PRESIDENT TRUMP said yesterday that his discussions with President Xi Jinping were “moving along nicely” following a “very good” telephone call ahead of their critical G20 meeting at the end of November. But on the same day that the US president made his comment, the US Justice Department issued indictments against Chinese and Taiwanese semiconductor companies over […]
US styrene another petchems sector at risk from trade war
By John Richardson THE US decision to pick a fight with China over trade and geopolitical influence could backfire very badly from the perspective of new US investments in petrochemicals capacity – most notably polyethylene (PE) and ethylene glycols (EG). The data tell is that many billions of dollars of investments in new plants will […]
US ethylene glycols: The Cost Of Exclusion From China
By John Richardson IF THE US were unable to export ethylene glycols (EG) to China the economic logic of US capacity expansions would face major challenges. Between 2018 and 2025, China will account for no less than 84% of global net imports (imports minus exports) amongst the major importing regions and countries. (For those who […]
US Import Tariff Decision: Impact On Polyethylene And The Global Economy
By John Richardson THE PROSPECT of a US-China trade war has edged closer as a result of President Trump’s announcement yesterday that the US will impose 25% import tariffs on steel and 10% import tariffs on aluminium. Countries hit hard by the tariffs will include China and Canada. We luckily avoided a trade war in […]
Climate Change, Extreme Weather: Implications For Chemicals Companies
By John Richardson The greater frequency of extreme weather events presents a huge challenge for chemicals companies. Take Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma as the most obvious current examples. Weather forecasting service AccuWeather writes in this article: This is the first time in the history of record keeping that two Category 4 or higher hurricanes, […]
US Polyethylene Industry: Scenarios For 2017-2020
By John Richardson IT has been a remarkably strong few years for the US polyethylene (PE) business. The shale gas revolution has sent ethane costs plummeting, resulting in the kind of margins that you can see in the above chart. Lower oil prices have made naphtha cracking a lot more competitive of late, but the […]
Global Deflation At Risk Of Returning On End Of China Commodities Bubble
By John Richardson THIS time last year it was deflation that seemed to be the problem for the global economy. Despite many years of US Federal Reserve, European Central Bank (ECB) and Bank of England (BOE) etc. economic stimulus, consumer and producer prices had stubbornly refused to respond in the way that most of the […]
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