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 […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Vaccines, petrochemicals demand and a much more complex world
By John Richardson WE DIDN’T used to require expert knowledge of vaccines, epidemiology, political science and the impact of social media on human behaviour if we wanted to forecast petrochemicals demand, to name but a few of the many new disciplines that have now become essential. All we had to do was take IMF or […]
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 […]
Politics and petrochemicals: Fifth Plenum review and the US elections
By John Richardson The rather dull and very short formal government communique that was released after the end of China’s 26-29 October Fifth Plenum should not lead you to conclude that nothing of great importance happened during this Chinese Communist Party meeting. What you should instead still conclude, as I have been highlighting since September, […]
Why China’s polyethylene imports could be either 22m tonnes or 3m tonnes in 2030
By John Richardson THERE are so many angles to this that, as with the potential outcomes of the US presidential election, China’s Fifth Plenum is worth many acres of newsprint. The plenum is taking place on 26-29 October, whereas, as everyone bar the odd Martian knows, the US election is on 3 November. The plenum […]
Developed world polymers demand: layer after layer of new complexity
By John Richardson THE PROPOSITION that petrochemicals and polymers demand in the developed will see a V-shaped recovery in 2021 assumes two things. One is that demand will have fallen in 2019 versus last year and the second is that the worst of economic times are behind us. There are so, so many challenges to […]
China rapid rebound promises another great year for petchems, but beware of the fault lines
By John Richardson IT helped immensely that as the rest of the world was shutting down, China’s factories were coming back on stream. This allowed China to corner global markets for face masks, other personal protective equipment and pharmaceuticals. What was also a big plus for China was that it already had large global stakes […]
Retreat of globalisation and implications for petrochemicals
By John Richardson EVER SINCE the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, and the last great geopolitical struggle came to an end, the petrochemicals business has benefited from a highly globalised world. Product has flowed, almost seamlessly, from one country to another in ever greater volumes. Sure, it has never been the case of feedstock advantage […]
European petrochemicals at risk of delayed demand collapse as new business model emerges
By John Richardson AS DELEGATES take part in this year’s virtual annual European Petrochemical Association (EPCA) meeting, they need to try and get to the bottom of the mystery of why demand for the product at the heart of the steam cracker business – polyethylene (PE) – has done so surprisingly well. Once they have […]
US polyethylene: resilient demand could be at risk from delay to new stimulus
By John Richardson THIS REMAINS a mystery that needs to be solved: why US polyethylene (PE) markets continue to perform so much better in 2020 than they did during the Global Financial Crisis. Why it is such a mystery is that the economic events of 2008 were nowhere near as grim as this year. US […]
Jump to page: