By John Richardson WE know that weak growth in China, Europe and the US will have a major negative impact on the global economy in 2015. But does this really mean a new global financial crisis? Won’t the world’s economy instead just splutter along as it has done, pretty much, since the last crisis in […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Chemicals Demand Is Not Going To Return To Normal
By John Richardson EUROPEAN cracker operators are rushing to snap-up naphtha prices before prices rise again, reports my colleague Nigel Davis, in another of his excellent Insight articles. “The lower crude price seems to be driving downstream demand. Europe’s crackers are said to be running flat out,” adds Nigel, who has tapped into the market intelligence […]
OPEC, Human Nature And A $55 Brent Forecast
By John Richardson HERE is a quote for you: “Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.” This supports the argument we have been making over the last two months that human nature matters as much as data in helping us decide where oil prices are heading. […]
Crude Oil: How To Avoid A 2015 Budget Disaster
By John Richardson IF I knew the outcome of today’s crucial OPEC meeting in Vienna well, of course, I wouldn’t have to write this blog post to make a living. But what I do know is that oil markets, now that the Fed stimulus is being withdrawn, are beginning to function far better than they […]
Oil At $100 Was “A Rich World Luxury”
By John Richardson THE attitude towards lower oil prices in the developing world is “bring it on”, as it is an opportunity for hundreds of millions more people to escape poverty (see the above diagram). Once people start earning, say, $3 a day (less than what those of us lucky enough to live in the […]
Saudi Arabia Can Withstand Years Of Lower Oil Prices
By John Richardson QUITE a common argument out there is that if and when higher cost US shale oil production shuts down, oil prices will start creeping up again – and they will soon reach close to $100 a barrel again by Q1 of next year. Here is another scenario that I think is worth […]
Oil Prices: Ignore Human Nature At Your Peril
By John Richardson JUST four months after the blog first moved to Asia, we got the shock of our lives: The Asian Financial Crisis. We were bewildered and didn’t know what to think, but fortunately, perhaps, there wasn’t much of an Internet in those days. So we had smaller mountains of news and analysis to […]
Want Oil Prices Back At Above $1OO? Be Careful What You Wish For
By John Richardson WE worry that quite a few people still don’t get it on crude oil. Here is why: As recently as July, as the chart above from the latest BP Energy Review shows, oil prices were from 2009 until July of last year were close to costing 5% of global GDP. At this […]
Oil Prices at $50 or $150 In 2015? Take Your Pick
By John Richardson REAL price discovery is finally returning to oil markets after years of incredibly harmful central bank stimulus which put the market largely in the hands of the speculators. But now actual supply of and demand for oil suddenly matter again as central bank stimulus is withdrawn in the US and in China. […]
Oil Markets: The Failure Of Accepted Wisdom
By John Richardson THE illusion of a strong global economy has been created by central bank stimulus – via the Fed and, much more importantly, via China. And the illusion of a strong global economy was accompanied by the “illusion of scarcity” in crude oil, when, in fact, inventories have been high for years as […]
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