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Is China’s strategic push for chemical self-sufficiency reshaping the global petrochemical landscape? John Richardson, senior consultant at ICIS, joins The Chemical Show to share insights on how misjudged growth expectations for China, shifting demographics, and the rise of state-driven capacity expansions have led to the deepest, longest downturn in industry history. John and host Victoria Meyer examine why capacity was built around hopes for perpetual strong Chinese demand, only for real estate and demographic headwinds to alter the trajectory—creating a world of oversupply, negative margins, and mounting uncertainty.
Their conversation covers the ongoing impact of trade tensions, the real drivers behind Chinese investment decisions, and why shutting down uneconomical assets is becoming a pressing necessity, especially in Europe and Asia. John and Victoria also weigh the challenges and promises of AI and data intelligence in a conservative, data-guarded sector, and offer advice for industry leaders navigating persistent market disruption. For chemical professionals, these perspectives highlight why adaptability, intelligence, and innovation will be critical in mastering both today’s volatility and tomorrow’s opportunities.
Discover more about the following topics:
- How China's pivot from growth to self-sufficiency is reshaping global petrochemicals.
- Why chemicals face their worst business cycle ever, with Asian producers bleeding money on polyethylene.
- How tariffs and shifting policies create constant uncertainty for chemical companies.
- Why China's government-backed enterprises compete on strategy, not just cost.
- How data and artificial intelligence will separate industry winners from losers.
“We've all assumed that polymer sciences are, you know, composites and stuff and playing with the same basic molecules, but maybe not.” — John Richardson
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Creators and Guests
What is The Chemical Show: Where Leaders Talk Business?
Looking to lead, grow, and stay ahead in the trillion-dollar global chemical industry? The Chemical Show - the #1 business podcast for the chemical industry - is your go-to resource for leadership insights, business strategies, and real-world lessons from the executives shaping the future of chemicals. Grow your knowledge, your network, and your impact.
Each week, you'll hear from executives from across the industry - from Fortune 50 to midsize to startups. You’ll hear how they're tacking today's challenges and opportunities, their origin story (what got them here!), how you can take and apply these lessons and insights to your own business and career.
We talk:
- Business Transformation
- Innovation
- Digitization of business
- Strategy
- Supply Chain
- and so much more
Founder and host Victoria King Meyer is an expert interviewer - who brings out the best in each guest. She gained her industry experience at leading companies, including Shell, LyondellBasell and Clariant. Today, she is a high-performance coach and advisor to business leaders in chemicals and energy, as well as the host of The Chemical Show podcast, and founder of The Chemical Summit.
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Welcome to The Chemical Show, the
podcast where Chemical means business.
I'm your host, Victoria Meyer,
bringing you stories and insights
from leaders driving innovation and
growth across the chemical industry.
Each week we explore key trends,
real world challenges, and the
strategies that make an impact.
Let's get started.
Victoria: Welcome back to The Chemical
Show Where Leaders Talk Business.
I am here today with John Richardson,
who is a senior consultant at ICIS, and
those of you who are longtime listeners
of The Chemical Show know that John
always brings a sharp, insightful
perspective about what's going on
across the global chemical industry.
Certainly with the lens, especially
towards China and the Middle East and
its role in the global chemical business.
So, John and I are here to
have another great conversation
about all things chemicals.
John, welcome to the Chemical Show.
John: Thank you very much, Victoria.
Glad to be here again.
Victoria: Yeah, I'm really
glad to have you here.
So first of all, give me the
one minute intro, to you because
some, again, we might have some
new listeners who don't know.
John Richardson.
I.
John: Right.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm a journalist by
background, sort of drifted into
the chemicals industry back in 1997.
I became a consultant in 2006.
So all my stuff is confidential.
Now, of course, I'm no longer a
journalist, but, um, what I try to
do, Victoria, is to bring a kind of
independent perspective to stuff.
And I try to connect the macro
with the micro, if you like.
And it's not.
Rocket science, really.
I just talk to lots of
people and think about it.
Victoria: Yeah.
John: I just try and network quite,
quite often with quite senior people
who talk to me in confidence to
try and work out what's happening.
So that's, it's still journalism really.
but more commentary these days I think.
Victoria: Yeah, and I can certainly
see that, in fact, uh, I think one
of the things, I know you're quite
prolific in writing and publishing,
- Your lens on the chemical industry and
your lens on what's going on across
China, um, and its relationship to the
chemical and petrochemical industry.
And of course you publish that a lot on
LinkedIn as well as on the ICIS blog.
So if people aren't following
you now, they should be because
there's always something I.
Good to be learned.
So John, let's just start
with, let's set the stage.
I think I know where we are currently
when we look at the chemical industry,
but you know, from where you sit, what's
your view on where are we at this moment
in time across the petrochemical industry?
John: Let's forget the
trade war for the time.
Put that aside because materially
hasn't made that much difference.
Right?
We are still at a situation where
we're in the deepest trough.
In the history of the industry, certainly
the longest trough I think, could argue
that around 2008 things were worse briefly
before the great financial rescue, right?
But this certainly is the
de the longest trough.
And it fundamentally is
because people got China wrong.
So it's boring this, but it, you know,
it got to remind people that people
thought China would carry on growing at
six to 8% per year across petrochemicals,
and the growth is less than that.
And people built capacity all
around the world, and the assumption
that China will grow at six to
8% and it's much less than that.
And that's because of demographics,
debt, the end of the real estate bubble.
We, we can see that so clearly
from, if you, I could show you 20
margin charts, Victoria, literally
flip them through every product for
north and Southeast Asia showing
the turning point was January, 2022.
It's remarkable.
So what collapse,
Victoria: what happened
in January of 2022?
John: Well, in September,
or was it August, 2021?
You had the ever ground moment.
So the government said, we're
not supporting ever ground,
this property developer.
And the bubble started really deflating.
and then you had the,
because the pandemic.
Kind of delayed things, right?
So we had a brief dip at late 2019
where margins turned negative in Asia.
And then of course you had lack,
lack of feed stop from refineries
'cause people weren't traveling.
You had that huge boost for
demand from people buying stuff in
lockdowns that was made in China,
the physical goods we bought, right?
So actually look at the margin patterns
ICIS data, the margins were excellent,
in that period of the pandemic.
And then of course.
Markets opened up, people
start traveling again.
The capacity comes online.
Operating rates increase and bang.
You have the ever ground moment, right?
And the drip, drip drip, which has
been building for 20 years, 30 years
of China's worsting demographics.
That's a slow motion thing, isn't it?
Victoria: So was that being
masked up until that point in
time, or was it just not known?
Because I think now that's
a conversation, right?
The.
fact that China's demographics, its
population is declining over the
next, I don't know, decade through
the end of the century, what have you.
John: I think it's, yeah,
it's a gradual thing, right?
It's a drip, drip, drip, as I said.
I suppose to some extent it was
maxed by the property bubble, right?
And the other thing I
think as well is that.
go back to two 14 when there was stuff
in the China Daily in the government,
newspapers, the government run newspapers.
We are gonna be petrochemical,
self-sufficient.
Now, people at the time said, nah,
nah, they can't do that because
you know the feed stock advantage.
But if you talk to the senior people
in the industry, they would tell you.
But China's never really always
built plants for profit is strategic.
It's about, as this former CEO told me
many years ago, it's about keeping people
in jobs in the washing machine factory,
the example are used by guaranteed
supplies of raw materials, right?
And so two 14 they said, we want
to be self-sufficient in more
of these value chains, right?
We're gonna build all these plants.
And, and some people said, oh, they
haven't got the cost per ton economics.
They haven't got the feedstock
advantage, the rest of it.
But that missed that strategic.
That drive.
Now, initially the, the strategic,
the strategic push was about
adding value to the economy.
We don't want to import these
raw materials, we wanna make them
a cells or population is aging,
want higher value industry.
and increasingly these days it's
actually making higher grades of
chemicals and polymers, you know,
going to more towards specialties,
away from basic commodities, right?
But anyway, two 14, we're gonna
build these plants can be highly
integrated, super efficient.
You know, we're putting all these
money into government institutions
or government bodies that will
help us build these plants.
Or economically and build our
own crackers, our own reactors.
You know, we can build our own
equipment without to import it.
So now you can build a cracker complex
in China, which is at least on a
capital expenditure basis, 50% cheaper
than building one in the US Gulf,
Victoria: Mm-hmm.
John: But on an operating basis,
it's not about necessarily
running for profit always.
It's about that self-sufficiency.
And then you have the first trade war.
That was 2 17 18, wasn't it?
Victoria: Yeah.
John: So, oh my goodness.
We're in a very uncertain iCal world.
There's all these shifts taking place.
We better push even harder
towards self-sufficiency.
So you have a combination of
China building all these plants.
You have the, the, the,
the ever grand moments.
You have the drip, drip drip, which
is hard to discern on a yearly basis.
I know the demographics
are getting worse, right?
All combining.
And you had that moment, as I said,
of you know, things being maintained
or margins boosted by the pandemic and
it is quite remarkable and nothing,
if you look at the margins now, post
liberation day versus before liberation
day, There is no material change.
The margins in in in poly athia remain
negative on a variable cost base.
Integrating nap, the
base are still negative.
Since 2022, if you look at from
January, 2022, up to the end of May
margin is polyethylene and negative.
Victoria: Hmm.
If
John: you look at January until
March before Liberation Day, they
were negative about the same level.
So fundamentally nothing has changed.
So, but a situation where
in order to get back.
To normal operating rates.
That's a 19 92, 20 21 operating rates.
That's what we'll call the chemical
super cycle, right When operate rates
were fantastic given that demand is
so uncertain and the don't seem for
many upsides for demand over the next
few years, given the situation in
China, you have to close capacity down.
Now, where that happens,
of course, is a big debate.
Who makes those decisions?
Victoria: Yeah.
So John, I think one, a couple
of things on this that strikes me
and you talk about, the negative
variable margins, um, as it relates
to polyethylene in particular.
You know, I know that we've seen that
in conjunction with the fact that.
China in particular is, uh, not
necessarily making investment
in production decisions on the
basis of margins in the way
that a Western company would.
And by the way, I, I also want to
just make sure and highlight that.
If we looked at what was going on in the
nineties, with investment in the Middle
East and Saudi and across the Middle
East, a lot of that had to do with.
Jobs and did not necessarily have
to do purely with, profitability and
margin, although the Middle East had
excellent feedstock pricing basis.
So that margins were
there for a long time.
But if we look at this, people sitting
in Europe, maybe the US in other
countries, that frankly China's moving
a lot of product to, they view this as.
Maybe price dump, uh, dumping.
Right?
So they're concerned about dumping,
that there things are getting dumped
at low prices and that it actually is
anti-competitive from their perspective.
Do you think Chinese
companies see it the same way?
Do they view this as a competitive
strategy to go, you know, dump
product at low prices in other
regions just to keep things moving?
Or is there a different
mindset and strategy going on
John: this?
All the cost of capital, you know,
working capital, cost of building
stuff is cheaper, as I said.
So, you know, the economic incentives
are different because it's state driven,
what, what's just interesting about
this new wave of cracker capacity,
which is coming on stream now to 2028?
Victoria: Yeah,
John: a lot more of it this time
round is state owned companies.
The previous round was private companies.
Even private companies can respond
to state signals of cheap capital.
And, you know, please, please export.
We need to support jobs.
But obviously if you're a state
run company, it's even more so.
So, you know, the crackers they're
building at the moment are mainly, as I
say, you know, Patrick, China and Sinopa.
So it's just different, they're not
motivated to think in the same way.
Victoria: Yeah, I think
that's interesting.
All right, so, so let's
talk tariffs a little bit.
Or as we sometimes, you know, you,
you noted already the pre Liberation
Day post Liberation Day, which, you
know, liberation days often have
different meetings, in different places.
But we know that the liberation day
was the, Trump US imposed tariffs on
everyone, which were quickly put on pause.
What's the view when you talk to leaders
in different companies, and I know
you're, you're speaking with a lot
of people in the east and elsewhere.
Um, what's the view on
what's going on with tariffs?
John: Um, uncertainty.
Layered upon uncertainty.
Wouldn't be surprised about that.
But I mean, um.
You had the liberation day
shock when people thought,
is this a great depression?
Right?
If you're talking about 46%
tariffs, I think on Vietnam or
Malaysia and Indonesia, these
are ruin us tariffs, right?
Never mind the situation with China
and you know what on earth is happening
and then you had the relief of the
poors, you had the panic over China,
then your relief of the truths.
You have a panic over Europe.
Signs of things improving.
So what does tomorrow bring?
And you can't plan for investment.
No, certainly reinvestment the
question now with, with chemicals
and polymers for a lot of people,
but you can't plan a business.
And you don't want demand is because
the converters, the people buying
the chemicals and polymers, they're
thinking, well, you know, I will buy
smaller lots now I'll be more cautious.
I dunno what the effect is downstream
on the consumers of the final product.
Right.
The whole uncertainty urgency
is making 2025 looking, looking
at pretty much a flat year.
Victoria: Do you think
we've got overall demand?
Decline, demand destruction, John.
I mean, certainly we know
that we've got oversupply.
We're in a period of oversupply and,
despite all the shutdowns we're seeing,
particularly in Europe, with a variety
of companies announcing closures,
which has to do as much with their
own energy policies, , as it does with
what's going on, in China and the East.
you know, Does your data show that?
Demand is declining.
Is it just flat?
Where, where do you see this?
John: if you talk about China, the
problem is getting reliable data
outta China for everybody, right?
Because obviously the GDP
numbers we know are just a
government thing, political thing.
So what's really happening on the
ground is extremely difficult to
assess just talking to people.
have we got negative chemicals
growth in China this year?
Probably not, I don't think, but
we're certainly in the, what is it?
Well, it's low single digs, right?
That material being affected by the trade?
Well, it's really hard to say.
What we do know, as I said, is
it's a lot lower than it was
during the chemical super cycle.
Right.
I mean, what China's been able to
do in terms of manufactured goods,
I've just seen the data for, for May
is to been able to compensate for
a collapse of exports to the US by
increasing exports everywhere else.
So, you know, you suspect that
will support chemicals consumption.
On the domestic front, China, the
property market, showing signs maybe of
bottoming out in the bigger cities, but
not in the third and second tier cities.
Not yet.
That's a long way off.
And there's not gonna be the same
momentum for growth from real estate
as before, so, so it's a long answer.
I think.
We don't know.
All we know is low single digits.
Victoria: Part of the objective for
investment is around employment,
and use of capital and stuff.
And I know a couple years ago it
seemed like, there was a lot of
chatter in the news and different
media reports, about low employment in
China, particularly for young adults,
recent college graduates, et cetera.
Um, and that's gone quiet a bit.
Is that still an issue?
Do you hear anything about this?
John: No.
Very, very, very big problem.
I think, um, the real unemployment rates
are, again, hard to discern from the
official data, but, there's this, um,
lying flat phenomenon where people, um.
not driven, not motivated to,
to work as hard 'cause they
don't see the prospects, right?
So it's a psychological thing.
We hear people talk about lying flat.
Um, so you stay at home with your parents.
Your parents have got very nice
condo, thank you very much if you're
middle class, but you can't afford
one yourself 'cause the property
prices are still too high, and
your job prospects are not great.
So that's that kind of
effect on consumption.
it's still there.
I don't think that's been really changed
by the trade war, the whole export
component side of the economy, though
of course it's now more vulnerable.
We dunno what's gonna happen next.
Again, it's the uncertainty I.
Victoria: And we're all living with
that uncertainty, which is really hard.
Um, okay, so I'm gonna layer in our
next layer of uncertainty, John,
uncertainty slash opportunity,
which is, intelligence and ai.
And, and we had a great conversation
before we hit the record button
just about how we're each, using
AI personally, professionally, et
cetera, and, and what that does.
So, how do you see this evolving?
Right.
So I think one of the things we
said, that success when we look at
success across the chemical industry
and who's really risen to the top.
And I think this applies in
the chemical industry more
broadly, uh, other industries.
It's not just about the assets, it's
about the intelligence, and the fact that.
People can have the same steel in
the ground, um, and the same bits
of information and make different
decisions, can harness ai, can
harness other leverages differently.
What do you, what are you seeing,
from what you're, where you're at?
John: well, the strange things about AI
is how, you me, measure productivity.
We didn't talk about this
Victoria, but it's very much
an individual thing, isn't it?
Yeah.
so how do chemical companies
measure what their staff are doing?
And are they using it to go down the
beach, spend less time at work, do
the, the job more efficiently, and
how do you actually monetize that so
people doing the same job in less time?
And how you therefore benefit from
that in terms of productivity.
It's an interesting question,
but then you think, okay.
Let's assume we can
start making use of this.
We're living in an
incredibly complex world.
We've got tariffs, of
course, we've got the impact.
Longer term of climate change,
we've got demographics.
The old issue of how on earth you estimate
demand, what is demand over the long term?
How do you build a plan?
Existing models for estimating demand,
they're based on multiples of GDP.
That probably doesn't work anymore.
Can we use AI to build long-term demand
models, which are more complex based on
varis in weather patterns and migration
and demographic spending patterns.
All these things using, you know,
building a model will be so much
more complex that we almost give up.
Just too complex.
Then let's go back to the here and
now of the, sort of the median term.
Well, can we use AI to forecast, margins,
trade movements, trade flows in ways
that are much more reactive and complex
in ways that we, me humans can do?
Can we trust the data?
That's an evolution that I think will
happen as people try things out and
build greater confidence in these models.
And as you know, the
models learn, don't they?
Victoria: Yeah, they do.
Now, what's interesting with this,
John, is I think, most companies
view their data as proprietary.
So, you know, why is chat GPT so
good at a lot of things, whether
it's writing a book, whether it's
interrogating something, whether
it's writing a, an email, what
have you, putting together a menu.
I mean, people use it for all kinds of
stuff, planning trips, what have you.
but one of the reasons that it's so
good and so robust and I think about.
How it is today versus how it
was when I started using it two
years ago, is because of all the
millions of people asking questions,
providing insights, doing the things.
So it's gathering up all this data and
information to create intelligence,
if you will, which is a lot harder
to do inside of a company because
most companies still view their.
Margins, profitability, demand supply,
all the data that we've been talking about
today as really proprietary information
and how, I guess the question is, how
does this change and will it change?
Do you see a connectedness coming
with data to make the industry
decision making more robust?
Because otherwise you're still working
with just a very limited data set.
John: It's more democratic,
you know?
So I think, within a chemicals company,
you've got your way of doing things,
you've got your special view of a market,
your knowledge, you know, based on the
data to keep that proprietary is gonna be
very difficult, As these machines learn,
I mean, there's an interesting theory,
of course, is that because you're worried
about ai, you keep less and less of it
offline, you start storing your knowledge.
Don't put it online at all.
Maybe, you know, maybe there'll
be a sort of counter movement of
people protecting their knowledge.
You know, you keep it on in note
form even, you know, because once
it's online, it's out there, right?
Obviously you can put it behind
server walls and things, which
provides some protection, right?
I think that will, that will help.
But I mean, the thing is then
you get AI producing replica, or
synthetic data, which is good enough.
You recognize this.
It's pattern recognition across numbers.
So for a chemicals company, I think it's
a question of time before that develops.
It democratizes, right?
So what's, what's left?
Well, it is the interpretation.
It is the intelligence.
It's the ability, at least until Gen
AI comes along, until we ask the right
prompts, we ask the right questions.
We make the machines work for
us, do increasingly sophisticated
things in much more complex ways
than we could have done before.
And I think that's the moment when you
start really monetizing it from a higher
level, if you see what I mean from a.
Research department level, but as I
said, I keep coming back to productivity
in individuals, in companies.
How do you measure that?
Victoria: Yeah.
Well, you know what's interesting
with that too, John, I don't know
how much, you know, I would have say
there's arguably a debate about whether
there is a productivity improvement.
There may be is on finite
discreet tasks, but then.
I thought you go down the rabbit trail,
you free up your time and it's not that
you're freeing up your time so you can go.
Sit on the beach or have a cup of
coffee, you're freaking up your time
because you're asking what's the next
set of questions, that you can do.
So I don't know that I, I think
there is productivity improvement,
but it's productivity so that you
can move on to the next topic.
And let me tackle this task quickly,
because my next task that I've got
facing me is a bit more complex.
John: That depends on the individual.
If you're just sort of like that curious
person's always pushing themselves
on to the next more complex thing,
you are massively relieved by the
fact that you can get the PowerPoint
slide done by AI for you, right?
Or the presentation for your boss.
'cause it's done in in minutes, isn't it?
Which better than you could do, right?
But then, you know, for some people, oh,
I will go to the beach, but for other
people they will push onto the next task.
But I think the people that
push onto the next task.
That's the difference.
Victoria: Yeah,
John: that's, that's
the shock that's coming.
For, um, well, I'm getting your retirement
Victoria, so maybe I'll be alright.
Victoria: But for younger people, you
and I both have kids that we need to be
John: Exactly, yeah, yeah.
Gainfully
Victoria: employed, innovators,
entrepreneurs, whatever it is,
but they have a whole lifetime
to, to live and exceed and
John: education to pay for.
But I mean, um, I think that, you know,
the, the, the issue will be for the
younger people, certainly how they adapt.
To, to constantly innovate.
As you say, you do the basic tasks, the
more complex tasks become done by ai.
How do you move on to the next thing and
the next thing and what is the next thing?
Victoria: Yeah.
John: but I mean, the routine
stuff just goes, doesn't it?
Victoria: And I think that's
maybe appropriate, right?
We, we talked about this quote I'd
seen, recently, I wrote down it's
complacency kills progress, right?
Yeah.
So there's this aspect of we've all
been com it's easy to become complacent
and you say, oh, I know what I'm doing.
I'm doing my job the
same way, the same time.
I'm an expert at this.
and then along comes ai because
it is systematized, it can become.
More systematized.
And so you have to keep progressing,
and doing something new and different.
John: I mean, Sam Altman said very
interestingly, is it the new Industrial
Revolution or is it the new Renaissance?
Which I thought was interesting because
it, it is up to individuals then isn't.
The Renaissance was about some
extraordinary individuals, wasn't it?
Right.
maybe that's it.
It's up to each of us to do
that progress and just, and
the machines learn, don't they?
So how it responds to you as an
individual is the most astonishing
thing I've noticed with ai.
That, the same person puts in different
prompts and gets different answers.
So it's how you innovate as an
individual, which is just a very
different way of looking at the world.
Victoria: Yeah, absolutely.
Alright, so John, uh,
final question for you.
What should we be looking for?
So you sit there, you, you monitor a lot
of stuff, you provide your assessments.
As a leader in the chemical industry,
what advice are you giving people in
terms of whether they be, uh, milestones
or, road science that they be, should
be looking for to help navigate us
through the current time that we're in?
John: Well, I guess.
Trade war aside, we dunno
what's gonna happen.
So let's look at the sort
of other stuff, right?
Any number of options
of what could happen.
I think short term.
Short term is looking
where we are in the cycle.
So the, the view is maybe things
get better by 2028, late 2028.
So we're into this very, very
extended down cycle started in 2022.
So you minimize your losses.
You, you know, you look at all the
markets around the world, where
can I sell these commodities?
What's the best net back
volume versus price?
Right?
you're really global and if you're a
commodity producer, and then you start
thinking, well, what is the long term?
will we ever see that tremendous demand
boom again where everything was easy
during the chemical supercycle, which
is essentially driven by China, right?
There's an argument that it won't be.
So you've gotta think, how do I
evolve my business to, to maybe not
look at, it's not just all about
supply, demand markets tightening.
You know, will we have an
upcycle, like will we have before?
And the longer term becomes much harder.
I mean, you can sort
of vaguely talk about.
Material science aided by AI helping
to do with climate solutions.
He can talk about all of that
stuff, I'm just thinking through
that to be honest, Victoria.
I dunno what that is, but I think
it's, you've got to have a, a
group of people thinking beyond.
It's just a question of sitting back and
waiting things for things to tighten.
That longer term is much harder.
Victoria: Yeah.
Uh, it strikes me, I probably need
to go look dust this book off on,
that's sitting on my bookshelf,
the Innovator's Dilemma, by Clay.
Clay Christensen.
Right.
And it went through all of the,
um, you know, the steam ship that
was, what was it, the coal ship
that was stumped by the steam ship.
Right.
Just these evolutions of
these beacons in industry.
Right.
So the Swiss watch.
Right.
That was, Superseded then by digital,
which was pretty crappy to begin
with, but then became amazing.
And now we all wear computers on
our wrists that tell us everything.
So I think, we are in this period
where we have to look at what's
the innovation, and how do you, you
know, you kind of got, you have to
innovate yourself to the future because
otherwise it's gonna happen to you.
John: can we invent a new polymer?
Is that possible?
I mean, it's been
Victoria: done.
Why, why, why not, John, why not?
John: I dunno, I, we've all assumed that
polymers sciences of, you know, sort
composites and stuff and playing with
the same basic molecules, but maybe not,
Victoria: and I think what's
interesting if we look at
innovations is in the glass industry.
Right.
Like if you think about glass, glass
has been around forever, right?
Thousands of years probably.
I don't know the real, the dates on this.
And yet these glass manufacturers,
Corning and others continue to innovate.
and I saw something, you know, so
double pane windows are kind of a
standard, in many places because
of the insulating factor and stuff.
Um, they are now rolling out.
Five pane windows.
They're like multi pane, very thin.
Very thin.
They look like a single pane of
glass, but it's much like the
glass that's on your iPhone.
Like, I mean, I gotta be honest, I
dropped my phone regularly, unfortunately.
Um, and yeah, it's thin.
Knock on wood.
I can't chase myself, John, but
it's been a long, it's been a
while since I've broken a screen.
Despite some pretty hard drops.
Right?
And why is that?
It's not just the case I use, but it's
the fact that the glass has gotten better.
So I think we're seeing
innovation in very old materials.
That we think about more broadly
across the chemical industry, about,
okay, how is it that the glass
manufacturers are innovating a new glass
when glass has been around forever?
And it's cheap.
Cheap, right.
except for the really good stuff.
And, uh, and so there may be, maybe
there is a model to a different polymer,
a different way of dealing with the
polymer, et cetera, that changes the game.
John: You can try and sort of break
out the tyranny of cycles on it.
You create your own demand, which
if we're in this very different
world of climate disruption and
demographics, that's what you gotta do.
but immediately, who's gonna shut
down, who's gonna blink first?
We've got to close lots of assets.
If we are to get back to decent operating
rates, that's the sort of medium
term challenge for companies, right?
Victoria: Can, can we close enough?
Are people willing to close enough assets?
Because I am concerned that the companies
that need to be closing basically end
up shutting their doors altogether.
John: Yeah, and we could
see that in Europe.
Of course, I believe that's, the
announcements are extraordinary
in Europe, aren't they?
But is that enough in Europe and what
are we gonna see in Southeast Asia?
Are there some of those less
competitive assets and uh, in Korea?
You know, those are the questions
that we've been asking now for
what, since 2022, but we don't
have any clear answers yet.
Victoria: Yeah.
All right.
Well, time will tell.
John: Yep.
Victoria: John, as always, this has been
a really good conversation and one that
we could, uh, continue on for a long time,
but I know it's the start of your day and
the end of mine, and, this has been great.
John: Thank you very much, Victoria.
Thank you.
Victoria: Yeah, thanks for joining
us and thanks everyone for listening.
Keep listening, keep following,
keep sharing, and we will
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