By John Richardson THERE is a lot of very unhelpful noise out there about China which is making it very difficult for petrochemical producers and buyers to see the real picture. But the noise is of great benefit to petrochemical and financial traders as, of course, noise accompanied by volatility is how traders make their […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Every climate initiative must be road tested in the developing world – and adequate funding is essential
The views expressed in this blog are, as always, my personal views and do not represent the views of ICIS. As always, also, they are here to be challenged with alternative views supported by the data. Thank you! By John Richardson EVERY SOLUTION to the biggest challenges our industry faces – which of course are […]
China polyolefins demand declines accelerate as supply chains remain the key challenge
By John Richardson ONE OF THE golden rules that has nearly always applied over the last 20 years is that you never bet against the Chinese economy. Time and again, the doom mongers have been proved embarrassingly wrong. But we now have enough data and anecdotal evidence from 2021 to conclude that the deceleration in […]
Pandemic’s third wave seems unlikely to damage global petrochemicals demand
By John Richardson THE GREATEST rock band of all time put it so well in Circumstances from the seminal 1978 album, Hemispheres. The apposite line in the Rush song in relation to this week’s petrochemicals markets is “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” (translated from French, “the more things change, the more they […]
The right analysis of China export data confirms moderate slowdown
By John Richardson STATISTICS, if you do not look at them in the right way, can be very misleading. This is the case with last week’s excitement about the growth in China’s June exports of manufactured goods. On a year-on-year basis, exports grew in dollar terms by 32.2% in June from a year earlier compared […]
Southeast polyolefins demand growth could be negative again in 2021
By John Richardson BEFORE the pandemic, GDP growth rates in the developing world were always higher than in developed economies. And because developing economies had much lower levels of petrochemicals consumption than their rich counterparts, it meant that the multiples over GDP were higher than in the rich word, where consumption was pretty much saturated. […]
China, China and China: the three global polyolefin market drivers during the rest of 2021
By John Richardson TODAY’S SET OF slides, starting with the one above, underlines how a deep and constantly updated understanding of what is happening in China is a defining success factor for polyolefins producers and buyers in every country. Even if you are, say, a converter in Brazil, you must understand, month by month, the […]
As the drift towards a divided world continues, here are some climate change realities
Note that, as always, the views expressed here are personal. Thank you. By John Richardson Executive Summary The big Western energy companies – the International Oil Companies (IOCs) – are selling hydrocarbon assets as they strive to meet more aggressive emissions targets, some of which have been set by environmental activists. The assets are being […]
China PP demand could fall by 1m tonnes in 2021 but prospects for PE look better despite a weak January-May
By John Richardson THE ABOVE chart confirms that China’s economic slowdown, which began in January-February, continued into May. Remember that the only valid comparisons are between the first few months of this year and late 2020. If you conduct year-on-year comparisons then of course growth will look better because for several months during January-May 2020, […]
Container freight crisis could continue until or unless the developing world is fully vaccinated
By John Richardson IF YOU WANT to understand when container-freight chaos will fully come to an end, look at the graphic above from Our World in Data, the fantastic free service set up to fight poverty, disease, hunger, pollution and the world’s other ills with the power of numbers. What you can see is the […]
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