By John Richardson A NEW RESEARCH PAPER by economists Kenneth Rogoff and Yuanchen Yang underlines the scale of what is at stake for petrochemicals demand if China doesn’t blink and sticks to its deleveraging of the real estate sector. The authors found that 29% of the Chinese economy is dependent on the property sector when […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Challenges facing China as it tries to bridge the rural-urban wealth divide
By John Richardson THIS COULD be the biggest event in our industry since at least the Global Financial Crisis, possibly even earlier. Do not make the mistake of underestimating the importance of China’s policy shift to “common prosperity” in your planning process. I’ve already covered some of the short-term potential implications in my posts on […]
What global petchems demand would have been like without the China property bubble warns us about the future
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 […]
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 pandemic, climate change, plastic waste and the great divide: the world in 2025
By John Richardson NOBODY SHOULD be surprised that the developing world has fallen behind in the battle to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as the region is a long way from recovering from the pandemic. Evidence to this effect emerged last week in comments made by Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA). […]
China polyolefins: key signals to monitor on whether 2021 slowdown is reversing
By John Richardson IT REALLY IS EXTRAORDINARY how commentators continue to use year-on-year comparisons for the Chinese economy in H1 this year versus the first half of 2020. Demand was of course always going to be better in H2 2021, provided China maintained control over the pandemic, because the economy came to a virtual […]
China will create petrochemicals deflation with the only question being how
By John Richardson THE FEEDBACK I have received on my series of posts about the potential for rapidly rising Chinese petrochemicals self-sufficiency has focused on the detail. “I don’t see China building that many new paraxylene (PX) plants because they are already long on gasoline, so they cannot keep adding refineries to supply the mixed […]
Global polyolefins for the rest of 2021: supply to lengthen as demand muddle continues
By John Richardson SOMEHOW, despite the still very serious container freight shortages that have limited imports, buying sentiment seems to have weakened in the European polyolefins market, according to my outstanding ICIS colleague, Linda Naylor. Our excellent ICIS Pricing team in Asia are also sensing a shift in the mood in southeast Asia (SEA) as […]
Iran may gain 48% of total China HDPE imports, 85% of LDPE imports by 2025 because of new deal
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 […]
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 […]