Tariffs and Trade Wars with Joseph Chang and Al Greenwood of ICIS

Listen to Victoria Talk All About Tariffs with Al and Joseph:

• Exploring the 2025 tariff policies and how they are reshaping chemical trade flows
• The economic ripple effects of the tariff policies
• Supply chain resilience and why chemical companies must map their entire supply chains
• Energy market dynamics: what is benefitting US chemical producers and what are the challenges
• Strategic planning in uncertainty and navigating the 90-day tariff pause

Watch the Interview with Joseph and Al on Youtube Here:

Tariffs and Trade Wars with Joseph Chang and Al Greenwood of ICIS

Welcome back to The Chemical Show, where chemical means business. Today, we are focusing on tariffs, talking about the current state of play and what chemical leaders should be expecting. So as you guys already know, 2025 has been a roller coaster. I think we thought maybe that it was gonna be a little bit better than prior years.

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However, there’s been a lot of movement both at the administrative levels, and we’d look at what’s going on in The US, but also globally with executive orders, shifting agency positions, continued geopolitical movement and shifts. And currently, we seem to be in a state of tariffs on everything. Although at the time that we’re recording this here in April, we’re in a ninety day stay on most of the tariffs, and my guests today are gonna talk a little bit more about that and what that means. Obviously, as chemical leaders, you know that we’re living in a global market. Tariffs, shipping, and supply chains all have significant influences on the market. So we’re gonna talk about that and more. Today, I’ve got Joseph Chang, who is the global editor of ICIS chemical business, and Al Greenwood, who is the deputy news editor. So these guys report on the trends in the chemical industry, analyzing drivers of the chemical prices worldwide, looking at feedstocks and price development, supply demand, project activity, M&A, and more.

Oh, and the “more” today is tariffs. So Joe and Al, welcome to The Chemical Show.

Al Greenwood:
Thank you.

Joseph Chang:
Thank you, Victoria.

Yeah. So let’s just start with your origin stories, how did you get engaged and start writing on chemical news and chemical markets? Joe, I’m gonna start with you.

Joseph Chang:
I started, with the the publication called Chemical Market Reporter that was eventually bought out by RELX, our current company. It was Reed Elsevier at the time. But, yeah, I started in 1997, so 28 years ago. I saw an ad in the paper, it said financial editor wanted, and I graduated with a finance degree from NYU. And I was like, oh, I can always write. So this seemed very intriguing.

I had no idea it was chemical publication. They gave me the job on the spot. They said you could start right away. I said, alright. Let’s just give it a shot, and you really learn on the job. But that was, 28 years ago. We’ve been through so many cycles and developments. It’s been an exciting ride so far.

That’s wild. And did you think that you would use your finance degree to report on this? Is this where you anticipated going?

Joseph Chang:
Oh, I don’t think anyone thought that they would end up in a chemical magazine. But it did prove very useful, especially going through earnings reports, talking to executives, M&A, financial strategy. So it’s been very, very, very useful. And I’m glad I could put it to use and actually be able to use that part, to bring readers a better picture of what’s going on in the financial markets.

Oh, love it. Al, how about you?

Al Greenwood:
Well, I actually started with a chemistry background in college. I initially majored in biochemistry, loved reading about chemistry, but I kept dropping glassware. So I thought, if I like reading about chemistry, switch to journalism, become a reporter or edit science journals, go that route, but I got ink in my blood, and became a newspaper reporter. So that stopped for about ten years. Then in 2007, the opportunity opened at ICIS. So I was finally able to put the two together, so that’s what I’ve been doing since.

Very, very cool. Let’s talk really briefly about ICIS Chemical Business, people may not be fully aware of that. So can you guys just talk about what you do and what the publication is?

Joseph Chang:
Sure. ICIS Chemical Business is a weekly digital magazine. Gets published every Friday at the end of the week, and it covers all the major developments that are happening in the chemical sector. It’s part of ICIS news, so the broader news offering. We kind of aggregate the important development, so I’m also part of the news team, and we report regularly online.

Cool, and I know you guys and some of your other colleagues, not necessarily in the news business, provide a lot of content both on LinkedIn and on your website and elsewhere. So I think people can see you. And in fact, Joe and Al, when we got introduced, I didn’t know you, but I’m like, I’ve seen your names everywhere. So it’s nice to get names and faces and voices all put together. So let’s just talk tariffs. What the heck is the current state, and how did we get here?

Al Greenwood:
Trump has been talking about tariffs throughout his campaign. It’s been a key part of his economic policy to bring back manufacturing to The United States, reduce the goods deficit. So during his campaign, he talked about reciprocal tariffs. He talked about baseline tariffs. So that’s what he campaigned on. That’s what we’re getting. So if you followed his campaign, there’s no surprises. I guess it’s just how quickly and the magnitude.

We weren’t expecting a 45% tariff on Chinese imports.

When we look at what’s going on, these are “reciprocal tariffs”, which I’ve seen a bit about how they were calculated. Do you know? Was it a scientific calculation? I don’t know. What are you guys seeing and hearing?

Joseph Chang:
Yeah. It’s called the reciprocal tariffs, but if you look at this in no way are these reciprocal at all. They’re not based on on the tariff levels of other countries or even the non tariff barriers that The US Trade Representative was analyzing. It is the US trade deficit divided by the US imports from that particular country.

So you took that percentage and you just divided it by half and that’s how you came up with the customized levels on the countries with a baseline of 10%, so 10% is the minimum. And as you mentioned Victoria, we do have this ninety day pause that started in early April. So that brings everyone to the baseline of 10% with the exception of China, which is at 145%. Also there are some exemptions for Mexico and Canada.

So everybody’s at 10% except for China at 145%, which feels a little crazy. What have you guys been seeing as a response to this? Both, I guess, inside the chemical industry, but when we look more broadly at what’s going on around the globe.

Al Greenwood:
We’ve seen, globally, prices fall. Part of that is because of the decline in oil prices. Chemical prices tend to rise and fall with oil. We’ve seen oil decline. On the one hand, expectations of OPEC+ increasing production. But two, oil prices are declining because there are concerns about demand. So whatever the reasons for oil prices declining, when they fall, chemical prices fall.

But in addition, these massive tariffs that The US and China have imposed on each other, they act as embargoes. So all of the chemicals and more importantly the end products that The US and China, once exported to each other, those have to be redirected. So especially in Asia, we’re seeing Asian producers being flooded with supply. So that’s contributing to price declines, and we’re also seeing that in Europe. In The United States, we’ve seen some initial declines for our building block chemicals, but we’re waiting to see if we’re going to start seeing price increases. RPM International held its earnings call right after April 2, the tariff announcements. It’s preparing for price increases.

In addition, polyethylene terephthalate PET producers have been pushing for price increases because their catalyst antimony China is restricting shipments, so that’s caused antimony prices to increase. So the producers are pushing for higher prices to offset those cost increases. What remains to be seen is whether US producers pricing power to raise prices. We’re gonna have to look, but there’s talks about that in The United States and the rest of the world, about falling prices.

Joseph Chang:
If I can just add, The US is pretty self sufficient in olefins and derivatives. So there’s not gonna be that much of an impact there. And if you look at the China trade, it’s mostly outbound in terms of US ethylene and derivatives in particular. But on the import side, The US imports a lot of products specifically from South Korea.

Again, you have that 10% tariff there, the universal tariff, but the initial tariff level on South Korea was 25%. The US also imports aromatics from the EU and which had a 20% tariff before that was lowered during the pause. Specifically one big impact on The US market is on MDI. So MDI isopinionate that goes into polyurethane.

The US imported more than 50% of its imports of MDI from China, but obviously with 145% tariff those shipments have been cut to zero. So that is certainly going to impact MDI market in particular. But the real risk to The US chemical industry is for exports, exports of chemicals.

The US chemical sector has a trade surplus of over $30 billion with the rest of the world and very exposed to retaliatory tariffs. So we’re seeing that from China. The US exports quite a bit of polyethylene to China that is under 125% to tariffs. So this is going to be very difficult. All these trade flows, as Al mentioned, they’re gonna have to shift, and you do see product being redirected to Southeast Asia.

I think a couple of points on that. Number one, I think it’s hard given the amount of construction that China has had certainly in some of the polymer products. It’s hard to imagine that they’re still importing that much polyethylene. On the other hand, we also know that The US built a lot of its most recent developments for an export market. I think we saw earlier in the 2020s a bit of a shimmying and shifting. So when tariffs come, instead of product going, let’s just use China, for example, going back and forth directly between China, it’ll get redirected to another route and then eventually making its way into The US or elsewhere. Do you see that happening again? Are we gearing up for a redirecting where trade routes just simply start shifting in order to avoid tariffs? Is that is that what’s gonna happen? Is that doable?

Al Greenwood:
For me, short answer is yes. We’re already seeing it because we’re seeing China redirecting, especially the end products to Southeast Asia. We’ve had auto producers tell our pricing editors in Asia that they’re seeing an influx of Chinese exports that would normally go to The United States now going to Southeast Asia. So we are seeing supply chains being rearranged. And, of course, US producers are going to have to look at their own supply chains to see if they could find another supplier. Again, think about that antimony, what other products could become susceptible to tariffs, and also, can they find substitutes? So we’re going to see supply chains rearrange. We’re gonna see product substitution when possible. And if those fail, if they have the pricing power, higher prices.

But, yes, we’re going to definitely see supply chains rearrange. We’re already seeing it happen.

What effect does this have on Europe? So I think about Europe over the past few years, and let’s take the last 12 to 18 months. We’re seeing lots of reports of assets shutting down. They’re, of course, under a certain amount of pressure or have been under some distress because of this compression between both their sustainability policies and carbon reduction goals and policies that have been put in place. As well as just sheer economics. Older assets are perhaps less economical. Energies had a role to play in the economics there. How does this tariff situation, how does this reshuffling affect that or maybe what some of those other decisions have already been made?

Joseph Chang:
It’s really interesting. Europe is undergoing a massive restructuring, and as you mentioned, we have seen a massive amount of shutdowns. Shutdowns, announced shutdowns, even product reviews, asset reviews due to competitive pressures that are coming not just from The US, but The Middle East and China. A lot of cheap capacity and product coming on. But yes, the tariffs do make things more difficult and much more difficult especially for the end products that Europe manufacturers and sends over to The US.

And including some chemicals as well. This will pressure European industry even more and also, yes, the same for the trade flows from The US to Europe if those are put under tariff and the EU has already rolled out a number of potential tariffs. So they put that on a ninety day pause as The US brought down their tariff levels to that 10% baseline.

So we’ll have to see what happens, but this can only make things more difficult overall. You’re seeing an impact on economic growth, slower economic growth that’s expected not just in The US, but you’re going to see this all over the world most likely with this kind of trade war that’s developing and that’s only going to pressure the European chemical industry more. I guess the only positive side is that governments are spending more on infrastructure. They’ve committed to spend more on infrastructure and defense because they’re really not looking to The US to provide that defense level, and they have to be more resilient and self sufficient. So that’s one kind of positive thing on the growth side for Europe.

Absolutely. Part of the tariff story, certainly in The US, is this idea that we bring more manufacturing into The US, which you and I both know it is not that easy. Right? Expanding a plant can be simple, but it still takes a year or two or perhaps more depending on what it is. Building a new site is much more expensive. But I think about this investment, whether it’s in, as you mentioned Joe, Europe on some of their infrastructure investment, US and elsewhere on manufacturing investment. Realistically, how long does that take before we start really seeing that spend take place? Because policy is easy, spend is more difficult.

Joseph Chang:
Yeah, and I think spending is even more difficult when you don’t know where policy is gonna end up or you have such uncertainty even on those tariffs and the ninety day pause and, do I decide to build a plant in The US, I’m going to assume there’s going to be major protective barriers of the tariffs in place and then, oh, what if policies change? What if maybe they strike a deal with some of these countries and the tariff is no longer there? Is it still worth it to build in this kind of environment? We’re seeing companies kind of pull back on investments and on decisions in terms of M&A, hiring across all businesses. These are very, very difficult purchasing decisions. It’s really impacting everything and it’s hard to make these big investments and decisions when the environment is so uncertain in terms of trade policy and even the macroeconomic picture, which is related to tariffs as well.

Al Greenwood:
Yeah. I needed to throw in, in regards to chemical production moving to The United States, specifically benzene. Benzene is a byproduct. It’s a byproduct of cracking naphtha. It’s a byproduct of refining. Nobody is going to increase refining capacity just to make more benzene. Nobody in The United States is gonna start cracking more naphtha. Ethane and propane are just too cost competitive.

So no matter how high the tariffs get, nobody’s building more benzene in The United States. So it’s not going to happen. If the tariffs stay high, producers are gonna have to eat the cost.

Well and we talked previously about just the effect of energy. So energy and feedstock components as it relates to the chemical industry. So propane and LPG. Right? The US is a huge exporter of that to China and elsewhere. Ethane, those things are starting to shift. Can you talk more about that, Al?

Al Greenwood:
The ethane that The United States produces and exports to China, China is not going to be able to competitively crack ethane with these tariffs. That ethane can’t move to another part of the world. It has to stay in The United States. So what we’re going to see on the ethane side is The US is gonna have to either put it in storage or increase ethane rejection. That’s about it. So we could see ethane prices reach a fuel value. In other words, ethane will cost about as much as what its fuel value would be to burn it.

Is it gonna be a good news or bad news that ethane’s gonna be so cheap?

Al Greenwood:
Well, that would be one good thing for chemical producers because when ethane is cheap, that’s gonna help their margins. But I think they would much rather see the demand equation increase instead of the cost equation, if they could do one or the other. But you’re going to see that would allow ethylene producers to increase their margins. LPG is a little bit different because we’re not the only exporter. So there could be some rearrangements. In other words, US to China, perhaps would see Qatar, I believe, is big LPG exporter.

We’ll see Qatar replace The United States, US replace some of the Qatari customers. So there’ll be some rearrangements, but nonetheless, we are going to see utilization rates fall for the PDH plants in China. We’re gonna see LPG prices fall with The United States. Our dock space for our terminals is already built. We’ve gotta get rid of this LPG. We’re expecting LPG prices to also fall, but certainly with that thing, we’re going to see a price drop unless the Chinese crackers can get an exemption, or two, there’s some things they can do with some swaps. I think if they import the ethane exports, export the derivatives, they might be able to avoid the tariffs. But, that’s about all they have to move around this.

Bottom line is NGL prices are going to fall because of these tariffs.

Joseph Chang:
Yeah. And I’ll just add that it’s not just in The US, but already we’re seeing the impact in South Korea and Japan. So some of these US LPG cargoes that were going to China, they’ve been redirected, and that has had quite a bit of an impact on the markets in South Korea and Japan with those prices falling pretty sharply. So we’ve seen that already in the past week or so.

Here’s a question. Do you think individual consumers are really starting to see the effect of tariffs yet or how and when? And I guess I would say both from a US perspective, but also a global perspective. What do you guys see from where you sit?

Joseph Chang:
I think it may take a bit of time for that impact to be seen because you’ve seen a front running of purchases. So a number of companies, they’ve already built up inventory in anticipation of tariffs and even consumers have gone out and bought certain goods and you see that in the automotive sector where I think light vehicle sales have shot up to about over 17 million units on an annualized basis for the last month. So, yes, these purchases are happening by companies, by individuals, already front loading purchases. I think by the summertime, you could see a real impact on that and potentially on prices as well. But it’s also kind of a push and pull where tariffs do raise costs and these importers will try to pass along the cost to customers. But at the same time if you get a real slowdown in economic activity, a real decline in consumer confidence, it’s going to be very difficult to push through major price increases. And so far we’ve seen a deflationary impact. Again, it may take time for consumers to really feel the feel the pinch of the tariffs.

Yeah, and it also depends, and I’ve had this conversation just personally with some some folks, around how deep the margins are on certain products. When the tariffs got announced on Vietnam, we’re at I don’t know the exact number.

Joseph Chang:
Oh, it was 47%.

There we go. 47%. Thank you. Somebody knows the number. And, you know, hey, is this gonna affect my shoes? Because Nike and others get a lot of shoes from there. I’m like, there is so much stinking margin on those shoes. It shouldn’t affect your shoe price. Now that doesn’t mean retailers won’t try to pass it on.

But I think there’s this whole disconnect. The margins obviously across the chemical value chain are thinner because those are raw materials getting used into production for other things. But, I guess that’s just one of the complicating factors is where in the system these products come and go.

Joseph Chang:
Yeah, and you can almost think of it as, okay, it’s gonna be a shared cost between even the producer that sends it over there. There’s gonna be some negotiation of the importer itself and the consumer. So it’s almost a third, a third, a third, there’s gonna be some shared shared pain there. But say because the product comes from Vietnam, it’s under a 47% tariff that if that particular number is reinstated, does the product actually go up by 47%, at the retail level? Absolutely not.

You have to eat some of that margin or a lot of it.

Yeah. So we’re sitting here in this waiting period, ninety days now down to, I don’t know, seventy days or whatever. I’m not sure what our timeline is. Well, actually what is the end of that ninety day period? You guys probably knows the answer.

Al Greenwood:
Sometime in June. Right? Summertime.

While we’re in this waiting period, what can and should chemical companies and others be doing to prepare?

Al Greenwood:
One, they’ve got COVID all over again, look at your supply chains. In other words, which products are you getting from Vietnam, which products are you getting from lower tariff countries, and see where is the most advantageous supplier with the tariffs, and also look at product substitution. Perhaps one product that you got from one supplier is no longer competitive. Is there a way to substitute it? And also look at your supply chains for your end products because those are a little murkier. So just like what we saw in Vietnam with this influx of Chinese material coming in and products that normally would go to The United States. All of a sudden, you’re getting those end products into Vietnam, and that’s affecting the domestic producers of those end products. They’re purchasing fewer chemicals from Vietnamese producers.

So you have to be cognizant not just of your supplies, but also your products, which products could be affected by influx of displaced shipments. And then finally, look at some of our arcane feedstocks, catalysts, additives, things you don’t really notice are missing until they’re gone because that’s what happened with antimony, and we’ve seen this over the years with natural disasters when for example, I think there was a plant that blew up in Germany that produced a feedstock for nylon 12. It was one of the very few plants in the world, so this one chemical caused outsized effects on supply chain. So that’s something else to be cognizant of. And then finally, the self help that companies have been doing the past eighteen months in this manufacturing downturn. So optimization, cost cutting, efficiency, etcetera.

Joe, from your perspective, what do you see? What do you see that companies can and should be doing?

Joseph Chang:
As Al mentioned before, I think companies will look at all their sources of supply and which countries that they come from. So I’ll just give an example for benzene. Benzene is a big US import. The US uses it to for all sorts of purposes, but also to make styrene to to export. But The US gets a lot, as mentioned, from South Korea. South Korea, again, if that’s 25% tariff that goes into place, currently it’s 10%, that’s gonna be a problem. So where else can the The US get their benzene? Well, from the EU. EU is another big source, but that could be under a 20% tariff as initially put in.

So you look at some of the other sources. So if you look at the other regions, India, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, there are also sources there, and that was originally under a 10% tariff. Now everyone is at that universal level, but they were under much lower tariffs. So you would go potentially to see if there’s additional supply from those producers in those areas to try to get. But, yeah, I think companies have been scenario planning before tariffs for quite some time since the Trump presidency and since he was elected. But I think in this, it’s just gotten so much more complicated with the different levels of reciprocal tariffs, with the pauses, the sectoral tariffs, all sorts of things. So, yeah, it’s becoming much more complicated, but companies just have to go through all their scenarios in terms of supply chain sources of supply, as well as other end markets as well.

Yeah. I think it’s a great point. And I think you said, companies have been doing scenario planning. And when I talk to some leaders, they’re like, oh, I plan for this. I just didn’t plan for this order of magnitude. And so there’s a new level of complexity as a result. Joe, one of the things you talked about is, as you call it, the arcane products or the products you don’t think about. Part of this is this whole supply chain mapping and understanding, in every product chemical products and elsewhere, you think that your supply chain is diversified.

Oh, I’ve got three suppliers. Oh, but they’re all going to the same original supplier. And that’s where companies get burned a little bit because they think that they’ve created security supply because they’re buying from three different companies. But as it turns out, those three different companies may be relying on a single source point. So that whole aspect of knowing your value chain, understanding where the implications really are, and working your way around it is critical.

Joseph Chang:
Another part of this is the impact on end markets. And in particular, you look at housing. Housing and automotive, those are two key end markets for the chemical sector, and both very much impacted by tariffs and the impact on interest rates as well. So if you look at the housing sector, you are going to see, at least signaled by the administration, sectoral tariffs on lumber. Lumber is one of the components there. You already have 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum. That’s bringing up housing costs already, and affordability is very much an issue here and the interest rates, interest rates have actually gone up. They’ve gone up in the past several weeks quite rapidly, so this is putting additional pressure on homebuyers.

Just overall, that sector will likely continue to be under pressure, and that’s gonna pressure chemical demand in turn. And same for automotive. You have a series of tariffs on foreign made vehicles as well as some of the components, as well as, of course, steel and aluminum, big input costs. If you increase the price of the vehicle, if the automakers have to increase prices, that’s going to automatically reduce demand. You’re going to have another knock on effect for chemicals. So those two key end markets are very much affected by tariffs, and they were already struggling before all of this. For over two years, we’ve had kind of an industrial or manufacturing recession, and part of that is the weak housing market.

And automotive has been kind of lackluster, but this could potentially get exacerbated with the tariffs. And, again, we’ll have to see what happens after this 90 day pause, but those are two key sectors to watch.

We already talked about people starting to, I don’t know, stocking up maybe is a strong word, but certainly moving some purchase orders ahead to try to moderate this. Do you anticipate this whipsaw that we saw in 2022 and 2023? So there was major stocking and then destocking. Have we gotten smarter about that, do you think?

Joseph Chang:
You know, Al was mentioning the COVID factor before and how companies really started double ordering, triple ordering and you saw the retail inventories really go up. I think the second quarter of 2022, you saw extremely high levels of inventories at the retail level. So the big box retailers, the Walmart’s, the Home Depots, the Targets, you had tremendous increases and then you knew this was gonna unwind. It was gonna go all the way back to chemicals and manufacturing. And certainly, we saw a massive destocking, not just in retail inventories, but that went all the way down to chemicals throughout 2023, even some effects in 2024. A really difficult period that was exacerbated by destocking.

What’s gonna happen this time? You’re seeing the same type of effects where the inventory builds ahead of the tariffs. Companies are trying to make the best calculation of what future demand is gonna be. But, how do you do that in this type of scenario? I think it’s very difficult. You’re gonna have some level of higher inventory, some level of risk associated with that. You’d like to think, oh, they learned their lesson from the last time during COVID, but you have a similar but different circumstance here. And, yeah, we’ll see what happens. But I don’t think you can completely mitigate that risk just because, oh, this is what happened during COVID. You run the risk of, again, a demand slowdown potentially emerging in the summer if these inventories have been built up and consumers have done some of their prebuying.

You could get a real malaise by the time summertime rolls around.

Good times, guys. You guys are the bearers of good tidings today, it sounds.

Joseph Chang:
Don’t shoot the messenger.

This has been a great conversation. I really appreciate it. Is there anything that we should be watching? Any key indicators? Anything you would say to people, like, keep your eyes focused on this as we go forward over the next three months, six months, and beyond?

Al Greenwood:
I’ve been looking at the yield on the ten year treasury note because we were expecting it to fall as the tariffs are introduced, and we’re seeing the opposite effect. So that is going to extend some of the pain that we’ve seen with the slowdown in durable goods, slowdown in automobiles, slowdown in the housing markets because at least for mortgages, those rise and fall with those longer term debts. So the fact that it’s going up is not good for the chemical industry because that played a big role in that manufacturing recession, that Joe mentioned. So that’s one thing. The other thing is, of course, what we talked about of restocking. We saw automobile sales pick up right before the tariffs. So that’s something else to look out for is how big of a pre-buying splurge did we see, and how will that play out. And then finally, looking at some of the forward looking statistics, the PMI, to see weaker demand offset the ability for companies to raise prices to offset the higher cost caused by the tariffs.

Because at the end of the day, buyers, consumers, customers really don’t care what your costs are. If there’s no demand, they’re not gonna buy what you’re trying to sell.

That’s helpful. Well, Joe and Al, thank you so much for joining me today. This has been a great conversation.

Joseph Chang:
Thank you so much, Victoria.

Al Greenwood:
Well, thank you.

Thank you. And thank you everyone for joining us today. Keep listening, keep following, keep sharing, and we will talk with you again soon.

About Joseph and Al:

Joseph Chang

Joseph Chang is Global Editor of ICIS Chemical Business, a weekly publication covering game changing trends in the chemical industry and analyzing drivers of chemicals prices worldwide. This includes feedstock and price developments, supply and demand trends, new project activity and sustainability. He has been with ICIS and one of its predecessor publications for over 28 years, specializing in coverage of key developments in the global chemical sector as well as financial topics such as macroeconomics, capital spending, equity and debt markets, and mergers and acquisitions. Joseph is also the Content Lead for the ICIS Topic Page – Macroeconomics and Impact on Chemicals, and has a degree in Finance and International Business from New York University’s Stern School of Business. 

Al Greenwood

Al Greenwood is a seasoned petrochemical industry journalist who writes for ICIS News from their Houston office. As a contributor to this real-time petrochemical newswire, Greenwood covers a diverse range of topics including litigation, renewable chemicals, natural gas liquids (NGLs), corporate earnings, and Latin American markets. 

Greenwood has developed particular expertise in reporting on the transformative impact of shale gas on the U.S. petrochemical industry. His coverage includes the construction of new gas-processing and petrochemical plants across the United States, as well as ethane terminals that have emerged in response to the shale gas revolution. 

Beyond his reporting duties, Greenwood serves as an editor for many ICIS articles published throughout the Americas, giving him comprehensive knowledge of regional petrochemical markets. His analytical work includes market impact assessments, such as his analysis of how the Omicron variant of coronavirus affected U.S. margins for polyethylene (PE). 

Interestingly, Greenwood shares his name with a musician who was a member of the band Foreigner, though they are different individuals with distinct professional paths.