By John Richardson IRAN and China earlier this month signed a wide-ranging economic and security agreement that has been under negotiation for five years. The deal involves $400bn of investment in the overall Iranian economy with as much as $280bn of spending on oil, gas and petrochemicals. Before I crunch the data and demonstrate how […]
Asian Chemical Connections
China early data point to PP imports collapsing by 78% this year with SM 67% lower
By John Richardson CHINA’S apparent demand for polyethylene, polypropylene (PP), styrene monomer (SM) and paraxylene fell during the first two months of this year versus November-December 2020. I have yet to crunch the data on the rest of the major products, but I suspect the trend will be the same. (This comparison is the only […]
China’s environmental policies: scenarios essential for impact on local and global petrochemicals
By John Richardson WE MUST develop very nuanced, broad ranging and constantly updated scenarios about what could happen in China over the next 20 years. Special scenario teams need to be set up by petrochemicals companies that focus only on China because the country will remain by far the most important petrochemicals market. China will […]
Worsening semiconductor shortages highlight need for new approach to demand
By John Richardson PETROCHEMICAL companies need to set up demand teams that focus on all the new short and long-term variables that have left us completely at sea on how to assess consumption. We need to almost start from scratch as regards demand management. Everything needs to be on the table for confidential and completely […]
China petrochemicals and the lack of logical basis for the 2021 boom theory
By John Richardson IF YOU DO a Google search, you will find a lot of articles on China’s economic recovery. Click on the links, spend some time reading them in detail, and you will discover a common narrative: China’s recovery remains on track this year. But you will not find the data that […]
Seeing through the lack of data: new scenarios for global LLDPE demand in 2021-2025
By John Richardson WE DON’T HAVE THE DATA sets nor the data tools to work out what is going to happen next with any acceptable degree of reliability. Until or unless we develop the necessary data sets and tools we will remain, in my view, all at sea about the direction of petrochemicals demand. The […]
China’s data gaps mean we must plan for multiple petchems demand, import outcomes
By John Richardson WE ARE STILL waiting for detailed data on China’s petrochemicals and polymers imports in January and February 2021. This is just one of many China data holes for January-February. We do know, however, that overall imports of plastics in primary form rose in volume by 8% in January-February 2021 versus the same […]
China’s critical 2021 “two sessions” highlight major economic challenges ahead
By John Richardson IT CONTINUES to surprise and disappoint me how every minutiae of the recent US petrochemicals outages have been pored over by analysts and yet relatively little attention is being paid to plant operations in China and the real, underlying nature of the country’s petrochemicals demand. This is despite China being far more […]
Seeing beyond tight supply: three new scenarios for global HDPE demand in 2021-2025
By John Richardson AT A TIME LIKE THIS, when petrochemicals and polymers prices are surging and margins for some products are also on the rise, it is very hard to cut out all the noise and focus on long-term analysis. Nobody, of course, can afford to ignore the realities of today’s extraordinary markets, probably the […]
China’s “two sessions” in 2021 could easily set the direction of global petchems for decades to come
By John Richardson DO YOU have a dedicated team studying the policy outcomes from this year’s meetings of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) which began last Friday and finish on 11 March? (These annual meetings are commonly referred to as the “two sessions”. For reasons described below, […]
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