By John Richardson TOMORROW’S winners will be those who recognise that oil, oil products such as gasoline and diesel and chemicals markets have changed for good. They will understand that this has generated a whole range of new opportunities to make a profit and to sell huge volumes of product. These two things are obviously […]
Asian Chemical Connections
China’s Latest Rate Cut: At Long Last The Right Reaction
By John Richardson HERE is the good news about China’s latest interest rate cut and reduction in its bank-reserve requirement: Most people are at long last seeing these types of measures for what they really are, which is an attempt to reduce the short-term pain. In the past, too many people – both short-term investors and the long-term […]
Oil Analysts Should Have Taken “O Level” History In The 1970s
By John Richardson WHEN Abraham Darby discovered a way of using coke to smelt iron ore in place of increasingly expensive wood in 1709 his technology didn’t stand still. Armies of engineers sought ways of making his process better, which led to the pivotal introduction in 1828 of “hot blast” technology. The “hot blast” breakthrough […]
Oil Market Muddle Continues Because Of Wrong Focus
CONFUSED? You will remain confused by oil markets as long as you continue to only look at physical supply and demand. Here is my long, but I think essential, historical explanation about why I think this is the root of today’s forecasting problems. And I also make no apologies for going over all ground because […]
US Oil Exports And The Struggle For Jobs
By John Richardson THERE are few other genuine long-term bright spots in the US economy other than shale oil and shale gas unless you are at the very top of the economic pile and so view cloud computing, social media and internet search engines as equivalent to “Morning in America” again. Cloud computing, social media […]
The Price Of Oil: Another Huge Historical Shift
By John Richardson FIRST came the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 followed by the reunification of Germany and the integration of Eastern Europe in general into the Western way of running the world. Then came China’s rise following the Deng Xiaoping 1992 “Southern Tour” and China’s admission to the World Trade Organisation in 2001. […]
Five Misunderstandings About Oil And Maybe A Sixth One
By John Richardson THE first misunderstanding about oil prices, which everyone now accepts was wrong, arose because people took too much notice of existing cost-per-barrel economics and so assumed that from October of last year, the US would close down huge amounts of shale-oil capacity. This didn’t happen because a.) Costs were lower than anticipated […]
Asian Ethylene Markets: What We Definitely Know
By John Richardson FORECASTING the absolute future price of any petrochemical has always been difficult and if you are ever exactly right this will be down more to good luck than good judgement. And the problem is that when you have been right once, and you make a big song and dance about it, everyone […]
It’s Insane But Why Not? Oil Back at $100 By Christmas
By John Richardson ALBERT Einstein is widely credited with saying this: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”. Who cares if it is either paraphrased or he didn’t even say it at all? This is a fantastic quote. For me, what makes this quote so […]
Moving Beyond A World Of Myths: Steps One And Two
By John Richardson We are living in a world of myths that are at long last being exposed as such, although I worry that this could be too late for some chemicals companies. One myth I discussed yesterday is the idea that because Chinese consumption of petrochemicals is so much bigger than a decade ago, […]
Jump to page: