By John Richardson PLAYING “What if?” games by changing the course of history is popular amongst students of the subject, including myself. Imagine, therefore, in our world of petrochemicals, if China hadn’t decided in late 2008 to launch the world’s biggest-ever economic stimulus package to compensate for the Global Financial Crisis. Beijing felt it had […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Whether Beijing blinks over Evergrande is the biggest issue for global petchems
By John Richardson WILL BEIJING blink? The answer to this question could pretty much set the direction of the global petrochemicals industry over the next six to 12 months. In my view, the question over whether the Chinese government will relax its clampdown on local real estate, which Bank of America estimates accounts for 28% […]
The perils of Evergrande for China and world polyolefins demand
By John Richardson ON THE PLUS side of the H2 China polyolefins demand ledger are the Golden Week Holidays between 1-7 October and the Singles’ Day internet sales promotion event on 11 November. The second half of the year always includes China’s peak manufacturing season, which runs from August-September until October, when Chinese factories ramp […]
China PP arbitrage to the US goes through the roof despite surging freight costs
By John Richardson IT IS VERY HARD to see how we will get out of this container crisis anytime soon. The crisis looks set to last until at least the middle of next year. The crisis could get even worse because of our over-reliance on China to make most of the things we need for […]
Latest data show China could become PP net exporter by 2026 and net exporter of 3.7m tonnes in 2031
By John Richardson DO YOU WANT the good news or bad news first? This is of course a rhetorical question because I cannot hear what you are saying. I have therefore independently decided to give you the good news first: ICIS forecasts that only 33% of total global net imports of polypropylene (PP) will be […]
Asia and Middle East PP producers need to be more global because markets are more regional!
By John Richardson NORTHEAST ASIAN (NEA) polypropylene (PP) producers are finding it increasingly difficult to export cargoes outside their region because of ample supply elsewhere and buyers’ reluctance to accept long delivery times. Freight costs have also spiked over the recent weeks, but container freight costs still seem workable on some routes. But when you […]
Global LLDPE demand in 2021-2025 faces major downward pressure from developing world crisis
By John Richardson IT USED TO BE the case that petrochemicals demand could be considered as a global whole. But this was before the pandemic. The failure of the rich world to adequately support the developing world in providing sufficient vaccines has led to a form of de-globalisation This is the divided chemicals world I’ve […]
China polyolefins demand in 2021 could be 6.5m tonnes lower than expected with imports a lot weaker
By John Richardson NOW we must be very careful here. Time and time again, Chinese polyolefins growth has defied the doom mongers. Just look at 2015 as a prime example, when, despite a mild economic downturn, polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) consumption growth surprised on the upside, largely because of a surge in internet sales. […]
China PP demand improvement points to huge global dependence on just one country
By John Richardson AS I’VE BEEN arguing for the past ten years, the global petrochemicals industry is enormously, disproportionately, reliant on growth in and exports to just one country. No prizes, I am afraid, for identifying that country as China. My colleagues from our analytics and consulting team have calculated a remarkable summary of what […]
Asian and Middle East PP exporters lose ground in China but enjoy substantial US sales growth
By John Richardson CHINA’S imports of polypropylene (PP) look set to fall to some 4.4m tonnes in 2021 – a 33% reduction over last year’s imports of 6.6m tonnes. The China Customs department trade data for H1 2021 when annualised imply 4.7m tonnes of imports for the full year 2021. But as around 60% of […]
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