By John Richardson IT IS always useful to develop a good plan and then effectively implement the plan. China appears to have been successful in both these respects in 2020 and this has been of great benefit to the global petrochemicals business. If only this were the case with all other countries. Without the plan, […]
Asian Chemical Connections
China petrochemicals rebound provides major global demand boost
By John Richardson WOW yet again. China’s export-led economic recovery continues to support global petrochemicals demand growth. Our business looks set to enjoy a much better year in 2020 than nearly all us had imagined was possible back in Q1. Here I only look at mono-ethylene glycol (MEG) and paraxylene (PX). But watch this blog […]
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 […]
Ah, I see: China’s booming demand mystery a little closer to being solved
Note that all the data comparisons below are on a year-on-year basis By John Richardson THE PROVERBIAL light bulb came on early last month, thanks to this article from Trade Data Monitor (TDM) which analysed China’s strong July exports and made the point that they were driven by a big change in lifestyles. Many […]
China recovery appears to lose steam as PE and PP self-sufficiency increases
By John Richardson DON’T SAY I did not warn you. The post-coronavirus recovery in China is already losing steam in April after a rebound in activity in March, according to this Bloomberg article. Domestic consumer sentiment is weak and export orders have collapsed as a result of the global pandemic, according to the wire service, […]
Coronavirus: Global polypropylene demand in 2020 could fall by 2.6m tonnes over last year
By John Richardson SOME GOOD news might be that official Chinese state media announced that the number of coronavirus cases outside Hubei province had up until Saturday fallen for 12 days in a row. But given the difficulty of diagnosing the disease, and last week’s sharp upward revision in Chinese estimates of the total number […]
Longer trade war: Impact in numbers on China polymers demand
By John Richardson WE MUST now start to quantify the impact on the petrochemicals industry of no end to the US/China trade war during 2019. Economists at Barclays estimate that a 25% US tariff on $200bn of exports could cut Chinese growth by half a percentage point over 12 months, and as much again if […]
China Environment Campaign Creates Global Inflation Threat
By John Richardson THE ABOVE chart shows the major role that China has played in driving global inflation, deflation – and now inflation again – since 2008. There is a close link between the movements in China’s Producer Price Index (PPI) and Consumer Price Indices (CPIs) in the Eurozone, the US and the UK. The […]
China’s PP Import Decline: Did you See This Coming?
By John Richardson THE smart people in the polypropylene (PP) business will have already adjusted their strategies in response to evidence, from 2009 onwards, that China was very aggressively expanding its PP capacities. They would have tracked the rapid rate of project approvals, whilst also ignoring claims that many of these projects would never be […]
Chasing Inflation: When Something Doesn’t Work, Stop Doing It
By John Richardson In Greek mythology Sisyphus was punished for chronic deceitfulness by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, repeating this action forever. There is a good comparison here with what the Fed and the European Central Bank have been trying to do with inflation. […]
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