Chemicals leaders must plan for a year in which powerful trends will alter the markets they serve, promising another period of rapid change across the industry landscape.

- Global overcapacity will get worse this year, ICIS Supply & Demand data shows

- Depressed demand set to continue

- Donald Trump tariffs may change trade flows, fuel inflation

- China economy will continue to struggle

- Disinformation will make it difficult to navigate trends

- Look for pockets of growth from low carbon agenda

SINGAPORE (ICIS) -- Asia ethylene editor Josh Quah and analyst Aliena Huang talk about the Asia outlook for ethylene arbitrage cargoes for 2025 with markets editor Damini Dabholkar.

• Ethylene loadings from US in December continue to favour southeast Asia destinations
• More intra-Asia tradeflows between northeast and southeast Asia expected for H1 2025
• Increasing ethane competitivity and demand may curtail US ethylene exports to Asia

LONDON (ICIS)--The European oxo-alcohols and derivatives markets have been subdued in December with a focus on managing inventory targets into year-end with destocking already underway.
The winter demand has also been sluggish amid wider challenging economic and geopolitical pressures.
Heading into 2025, the outlook is one for the challenges of 2024 to largely persist, with demand not expected to dramatically improve.
Acryalte ester report editor Mathew Jolin-Beech is joined by glycol ethers report editor Cameron Birch, oxo-alcohols editor Nicole Simpson, and butyl acetate editor Marion Boakye to discuss the current market conditions and to look forward into 2025.