The Democrat Party sweep of the Georgia runoff senatorial elections this week means President-elect Joseph Biden will take office on 20 January with his party in control of both houses of Congress and thus an easier path to enacting the policies on which he campaigned. The blog previously outlined some possibilities for pandemic-recovery economic stimulus […]
Chemical Connections
3 stimulus possibilities under the Biden administration
US president-elect Joseph Biden has called the recently passed $900bn second round of coronavirus-related economic stimulus a down-payment to what he will promote passage of after he is sworn into office on 20 January 2021. What that third round of stimulus will look like will be shaped in part by the two 5 January 2021 […]
All roads following US elections should lead to enactment of infrastructure bill
Finding common ground for US Republicans and Democrats is as difficult as ever during these hyper-partisan times, but if there has been one subject that has ventured into that rarified air, it is the need to reinvest in the country’s infrastructure. But while both Republican President Donald Trump and his Democrat opposition have signaled their […]
Plastic rubbish: the pandemic is increasing rather than reducing the pressure for change
This is the first of a series of blog posts where I will examine the environmental paradigm shift and what it means for the petrochemicals industry. This first post deals with the bottom end of the value chain, the plastic packaging business, and the pressure being exerted upward on petrochemicals producers to change how they […]
Good recycling news plants seeds for further advances
This year continues to be a “slog,” a word when said aloud just reeks of 2020. I guess that would be onomatopoeia for those you who remember your high school literature lessons and/or author Edgar Allan Poe. Hence, it’s doubly joyful when some good news comes along such as Chevron Phillips Chemical’s (CPChem) announcement on […]
Could recycling bring naphtha back in style?
Last week, the blog took a look at how government policies could shape a market such as that for linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE). The scenarios analysed uncovered a major point: A major upsurge in demand above the 2.24m tonnes base case for 2025 jeopardises operations for disadvantaged LLDPE plants globally. However, the demand for […]
How policies could shape LLDPE’s future
There should be little doubt that government policies across the globe will play a critical role in stimulating, rebuilding and reshaping economies staggering from the damage wrought by the coronavirus pandemic, which came at the time most were pushing forward with burgeoning sustainability and circularity efforts. Whether through ambitious “new deal” kinds of programmes, hands-off, […]
Chemical market whack-a-mole
Anyone ever play whack-a-mole? The image here comes from the 1990s, a time of ill-fitting T-shirts and no smartphones, so entertainment came from games such as whack-a-mole that sprung up (literally) to test our hand-eye coordination as well as our ability to deal with a new problem cropping up just as soon as we had […]
The US economy’s hall of mirrors
The US economic recovery from pandemic-induced shutdowns is about as disjointed an endeavour as I can recall. Recent data releases and surveys paint a quite jumbled picture. Take this week’s Beige Book release from the Federal Reserve, which distils inputs from regional Reserve bank surveys into the following summation: Employment – Up overall since falling […]
The pandemic and petrochemicals demand: a whole new approach is required
By John Richardson MONITORING demand has never been harder because of the pandemic. One of my colleagues on the ICIS Pricing team was, for example, last week told by one of his reliable contacts that polyethylene (PE) demand was good, bad or indifferent. It used to be that if you talked to the people you […]
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