Global styrene markets reflect permanent changes in the chemicals landscape

By John Richardson

NO MATTER where you look the story is the same. In every just about every commodity chemical and polymer, the turning point was the “Evergrande Moment” in late 2021 when Beijing decided to let the real-estate company almost collapse, as it allowed the air to pour out of the property bubble.

This occurred as the “drip, drip” effect of an ageing and shrinking population (some estimates suggest that the Chinese population could be as much 250m lower than the...