In-depth Analysis of 2024 Financial Reports of Global Chemical Industry Giants: Deepening Divergence and Transformational Growing Pains

In 2024, the global chemical industry exhibited pronounced divergence amid a complex and volatile market environment. Total industry revenue reached $4.8 trillion; however, international chemical giants’ performance diverged markedly due to two concurrent pressures: a sharp 18% year-on-year decline in Brent crude oil’s average price—to $78.3 per barrel—and weak overall demand. Traditional oil-and-gas conglomerates faced mounting pressure and significant profit declines, while the specialty chemicals segment achieved counter-cyclical growth through innovation—emerging as a bright spot in the sector. I. Industry-wide Performance: Oil-and-Gas Majors Under Pressure; Specialty Chemicals Growing Against the Tide In 2024, the global chemical industry exhibited pronounced divergence amid a complex and volatile market environment. Total industry revenue reached $4.8 trillion; however, international chemical giants’ performance diverged markedly due to two concurrent pressures: a sharp 18% year-on-year decline in Brent crude oil’s average price—to $78.3 per barrel—and weak overall demand. Traditional oil-and-gas conglomerates faced mounting pressure and significant profit declines, while the specialty chemicals segment achieved counter-cyclical growth through innovation—emerging as a bright spot in the sector. (A) Oil-and-Gas Majors: Profit Declines and Accelerated Transformation Within the traditional oil-and-gas sector, the combined adjusted net profit of the world’s five largest petroleum majors declined 17% year-on-year to $102.3 billion. This downward trend reflects the immense challenges confronting legacy oil-and-gas operations amid accelerating global energy transition. Specifically: • ExxonMobil reported adjusted net income of $33.68 billion—a 6.5% decline year-on-year. Nevertheless, the company enhanced its product mix, raising the share of high-value products to 68%, demonstrating strategic agility in responding to market shifts. • Shell’s net profit stood at $23.72 billion, down 16% year-on-year. Yet Shell has allocated 23% of its investment portfolio to renewable energy—evidence of proactive low-carbon transition. • TotalEnergies posted net profit of $18.3 billion, down 21% year-on-year; however, its installed low-carbon power generation capacity surpassed 20 gigawatts—laying a solid foundation for sustainable development. • BP recorded net profit of $8.915 billion, a steep 35.6% drop year-on-year—but over 30% of its new energy investments now come from its emerging energy business, underscoring firm commitment to transformation. • Chevron’s net profit totaled $17.661 billion, down 17.35% year-on-year. Through portfolio optimization, it freed up $3.8 billion in operating cash flow—providing financial flexibility for future strategic adjustments. Additionally, TotalEnergies’ operating cash flow amounted to $29.9 billion, down 17% year-on-year—a figure further confirming the short-term cash-flow pressure caused by heavy transition-related capital expenditures. (B) Specialty Chemicals: Innovation-Driven Growth Meanwhile, the specialty chemicals segment demonstrated robust growth momentum in 2024. Profit margins across this segment rose broadly by 1.5–3 percentage points; niche markets—including AI-chip materials and bio-based chemicals—grew at rates more than eight times faster than the industry average. This trend signals that, propelled by rapid global technological advancement and heightened sustainability awareness, specialty chemicals are evolving into a new engine of growth for the broader chemical industry.

Explosive Earnings—The Entire Market Has Been Ignited!

After several consecutive days of adjustment, China’s A-share market finally staged a rebound today. This rebound was primarily driven by positive spillover effects from overseas markets. South Korea’s stock market surged so sharply early this morning that it triggered an automatic circuit breaker. The two Korean market leaders—Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix—both saw their share prices surge nearly 10%. The immediate catalyst? SK Hynix released an exceptionally strong third-quarter earnings report. • Q3 revenue: KRW 104.6 trillion—setting a new record for quarterly revenue, up 32% quarter-on-quarter and a staggering 328% year-on-year. • Operating profit: KRW 83.3 trillion—up 38% quarter-on-quarter and soaring 632% year-on-year. • Operating margin: 80%—up four percentage points from 76% in the previous semi-annual report. What does this mean? Among A-share liquor industry leaders, Kweichow Moutai’s operating margin stands at only 67.7%; Wuliangye and Shanxi Xinghuacun Fenjiu report operating margins of just 42.21% and 41.91%, respectively. A memory-chip manufacturer achieving higher operating margins than *all* premium Chinese liquor leaders is truly beyond imagination. Even more astonishing revelations followed. At the earnings call, SK Hynix’s CEO personally stated two key points: First: “Our DRAM and HBM production capacity is virtually sold out for the next three years—through 2029.” Second: “The tight supply-demand balance in the memory market is expected to persist until 2030.” Upon release of this news, investor sentiment across the entire global semiconductor sector ignited. Consequently, at today’s market open, A-share segments including memory chips, optical modules, and computing hardware surged across the board. ………… Separately, the robotics sector also performed strongly today—emerging as another major theme. Two key developments drove this: First, last night Elon Musk responded to a netizen’s comment on “total memory demand for humanoid robots” with a telling remark: “Future memory requirements for humanoid robots will vastly exceed those of any existing computing device.” Second, Shanghai today unveiled its “Action Plan for Accelerating the Development of Next-Generation Intelligent Manufacturing,” which includes several concrete targets: • By 2028: cultivate 500 advanced-level smart factories; • expand AI application scenarios in manufacturing to over 2,000; • develop 10 domain-specific large models; • launch over 300 high-level intelligent agents; • deploy 8,000 humanoid robots in factories; • raise industrial robot density to 600 units per 10,000 workers. Remember these ten words: “8,000 humanoid robots deployed in factories.” This is yet another policy document recently issued by Chinese authorities to accelerate real-world adoption of humanoid robots. Recall last week Junlin’s analysis highlighting how top-level policy documents directly catalyzed the recent rally in the humanoid robotics sector? First came the central government’s implementation plan; then Shanghai’s local action plan; and soon, provincial governments across China are expected to roll out similar implementation guidelines. Once national policy decisively commits to deploying humanoid robots—and sets specific numerical targets—the implications are unequivocal: major initiatives lie ahead.

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