By John Richardson RIGHT now, of course, oil prices are on the up again because of disruptions to Libyan production and confidence that OPEC will extend its production cuts. Libya might of course be a temporary factor, and it depends how you define what OPEC has actually already done, and what it might do in […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Oil Prices Could Fall By 50% On Demand As Well As Supply Realities
By John Richardson THE REAL crude-oil supply story is becoming more commonly understood – hence, the recent declines in pricing. As I discussed in early March, before oil prices started heading south again, supply has been long for a substantial length of time. It is just that speculators chose to view the data in a different way as they […]
China Polyolefins: An Outlook For The Rest Of 2017
By John Richardson AS THE chart above shows, China is suffering from a bout a polyolefins indigestion right now as a result of a sharp rise in both imports and domestic production. This helps to explain the recent falls in pricing. This extra supply might have been very easily absorbed if markets had bounced back […]
Oil Prices Start To Catch Up With Supply And Demand Realities
By John Richardson I HATE to say “I told you so,”, but I have been telling you that this would happen. Oil prices on Thursday fell below $50, and were at their lowest levels since December as the realities of supply and demand caught up with the market In summary, I have been arguing the following […]
Oil Prices Could Fall On Stalling Of Trump Agenda
By John Richardson WHILST some Republicans claim that the House bill to replace the Affordable Care Act goes too far, others have called it “Obamacare lite”. And unless the Affordable Care Act is replaced, or at least modified, by the end of this year, then the rest of President Trump’s legislative programme for 2017 might […]
Supply-Driven Petrochemicals Success Under Threat
By John Richardson THE OLD joke goes like this: “If oil and gas exploration is the gorilla, refining the dog and petrochemicals the tail on the dog, what does the gorilla say when he looks at the dog? He says, “I can’t even see the tail on the dog’ ”. The history So events upstream […]
Tackling China’s Latest Steel Bubble: Implications For Petrochemicals
Note: A technical fault meant I was unable to update the blog on Wednesday and Friday last week. Business as usual returns this week. By John Richardson THE stop, start nature of economic reforms in China, which is the result of the battle between the reforming “princeling” politicians and the “populists” who want to maintain the status […]
Oil Prices: Speculation Reaches New High, As Do Risks For Real Economy
By John Richardson HEDGE funds and other speculators had amassed a record amount of futures contracts of 885m barrels by 31 January, according to the Financial Times. These contracts were equivalent to almost nine days of actual, physical demand. And the overwhelming majority of these contracts were “long” – i.e. they were of course based on the assumption […]
Another Layer Of Trumponomics Risk: Equities Versus Real Economy
By John Richardson THE TOP chart shows that global chemicals industry operating rates fell to just 78.3% in November, even though companies up down the industry’s value chain were building inventory ahead of expected New Year price rises. This was in response to all the excitement generated by expectations of an OPEC-Russia deal to reduce […]
Trump’s Diplomacy And Oil Prices
By John Richardson WHEN he was a candidate for the presidency of the US, Donald Trump promised to “bomb the hell” out of oilfields controlled by ISIL. He also declared: “I’m good at war in a certain way” and “I love war… including with nukes, yes, including with nukes.” What is said about policy during […]
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