Japan has an ageing population. Since 1990, it has relied on exports to boost its economy. Yesterday, official figures showed industrial production is now being badly affected by the global recession. Output fell 3.1% in October, and a 6.4% decline is expected in November. Observers forecast the September – December period could see an “unprecedented” […]
Chemicals and the Economy
Hope for recovery, plan for downturn
Surprisingly, our 7th European conference this week in Cologne (co-organised with ICIS), was one of our most successful. Delegate numbers were down, as companies cut travel budgets. But those attending said they had gained much more, than if they had stayed in the office. For a start, there was the opportunity to share experiences, and […]
Financial Times recognises the blog
The Queen of England recently asked “Why did nobody see the financial crisis coming?” The Financial Times took the view that “Some did, Ma’am. Some did.” It then initiated a search for these people. Today’s Financial Times now recognises some of those who correctly warned that financial crisis was close. I am sure readers will […]
US housing weakens again
US housing continues to weaken as the financial crisis of the past 2 months takes its toll of prospective homebuyers. Yesterday’s Case-Shiller index of house prices showed a “broad-based decline” in September, posting record annual declines of 17%. Similarly, the above chart from the ACC’s weekly report shows new housing starts (red line) at a […]
“An economic crisis of historic proportions”
President-elect Obama has become the latest world leader to “get it”, as his wife Michelle once remarked. For far long, politicians seemed to believe their platitudes about the “underlying strength” of their national economies. This meant their proposed remedies were reactive, and usually unworkable. More recently, the blog has also worried that the USA faced […]
World Bank warns on China growth
The World Bank has cut its growth forecast for China’s GDP to just 7.5% next year. Only 3 months ago, it was expecting 9.2%. And the Bank warns that the economy is dependent on “higher public spending” for more than half its forecast growth next year. Chemical companies will also be alarmed by the Bank’s […]
UK cuts sales tax to fight deflation
The UK’s Finance Minister, Alistair Darling, was the first western leader to warn that the current recession was the worst in 60 years. He was also the first to effectively nationalise major banks, to stave off their collapse. Now he has become the first to try to tackle the real threat of deflation, by cutting […]
The end of the beginning
Last week’s BASF announcement marked the end of Phase One of the downturn. This began over a year ago, with the first signs of financial crisis. Now, we will move into Phase Two – a long, multi-year recession, which will probably include several bear-market rallies. The end of this “beginning” Phase is seeing a disastrous […]
10 European crackers offline
My colleague Bob Townsend is well known to many in the chemical industry as an olefins expert. He has pointed out today’s most unusual situation in olefins. Normally, an unplanned outage by one or more crackers would cause major disruption. Yet today, 10 European crackers are down, for technical or other reasons, and many others […]
Benzene hits a floor
Regular readers of the blog will know that it believes price movements in benzene have great predictive power. This is due to the fact that benzene is one of the oldest of the major chemicals, and has the widest industrial usage. Thus in March, when benzene prices hit a “ceiling”, the blog noted this was […]
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