By John Richardson THE RUMOURS travelled around my contacts, and I am sure many of your contacts, for several weeks that China was undercounting the number of coronavirus cases (the disease has now been given a name – COVID-19). Someone said to me last week, “People go to hospital, get an initial positive diagnosis, are […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Coronavirus: Global polyester chain faces major production cuts, shortages and cost increases
By John Richardson A GREAT example of the extent to which global supply chains are exposed to China is in the polyester sector where, as you can see from the above charts, China completely dominates global net imports of paraxylene (PX) and ethylene glycols (EG). Note that our database puts mono, di and tri-ethylene glycols […]
Coronavirus: Global polyolefins cutbacks seem inevitable on major China demand loss
We all hope that the coronavirus outbreak will soon be brought under control, that’s the main thing, and my sympathies and concerns go out to my good friends and everyone else in China. It also important to also think, as a secondary and less important issue, of the business risks, and I hope my latest […]
Why coronavirus will be a much bigger deal for petrochemicals than SARS
By John Richardson THE WORLD was very different in 2003 when SARS struck. Back then, China accounted for just 4% of the global economy but last year this had risen to 17%. The US was also the biggest source of global economic growth 17 years ago. China has since overtaken the US to become the […]
China 2020 polyethylene demand 4.1m tonnes lower on single-use plastics ban and coronavirus
By John Richardson CHINA was supposed to be the one polyethylene (PE) market we could all depend on during a period of unprecedented oversupply. This is no longer the case. As I discussed last week, 2019 could well have been another stellar year for the country’s demand growth with consumption of PE at some 33.9m […]
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