Chemicals & The Economy

2 July 2007 marks the 10th anniversary of the Asian financial crisis, which began with the devaluation of the Thai baht. Visiting the country 10 years later, the situation has changed quite dramatically from those panic-stricken days.

Crude oil prices are climbing again. $100/bbl is not impossible, if current geo-political concerns continue. And today's tightly balanced market could persist to 2010.

Housing and autos have always been key drivers for the US chemicals industry. We should be concerned if the housing market weakens further.

Yesterday’s "swings in financial derivative prices were so extreme that they implied scenarios in which the core of the global liquidity system suffers a serious assault", according to JP Morgan, the investment bank. Watch out, if current US sub-prime mortgage problems turn into a more general “flight from risk”.

Consumer attitudes have shifted sharply in recent weeks. This could have big implications for chemical companies, and they need to respond quickly.

Central bankers are like generals. They seem to prefer fighting their last war, rather than preparing for the next one. How else to explain their continued reluctance to recognise that higher food and energy prices are here to stay? As a result, interest rates now need to rise more than expected. Pity those who have to forecast demand levels for 2008 Budgets

If you read the financial pages of your newspaper, everything sounds rosy. But if you turn to the news section, its all gloom. Both views can’t continue to exist alongside each other for ever. Whichever scenario comes out on top, will have major implications for the chemical industry. My own view is that this week’s Access deal for Lyondell will be seen, in hindsight, as marking the top. There could be storms ahead.

The US dollar has been falling steadily in recent weeks. It is particularly weak against the euro, having fallen almost 5% since January. OPEC countries buy much more from the eurozone than from the US, and the OPEC President has said they are ‘concerned’ about dollar weakness. We probably need to start monitoring oil prices in euros as well as dollars.

Bill Gross runs PIMCO, the world’s largest government bond managers with assets of nearly $700bn. In a new commentary, he pulls no punches about what he sees as the ‘gluttony’ of the super-rich amongst the private equity and hedge fund elite. He also takes aim at the lenders who, in his view, have been ‘too meek and too passive’. He sees the end of the era of cheap debt financing, and with it the boom in M&A that has sustained equity markets in recent years.

Alchemists once claimed the ability to turn base metal into gold. More recently, some bankers seem to have been claiming a similar genius, via the magic catalyst of securitisation. These bankers no longer perform their traditional role of lending on a prudent basis to good quality borrowers in the personal or corporate sector. Instead, they simply seek to lend as much and as quickly as possible, usually in areas that they do not understand. Their aim has simply been to generate significant commission income for their bank, and personal bonuses for themselves.

The head of Germany’s financial regulator is warning that US subprime mortgage problems may be about to lead to the worst banking crisis since 1931. Yesterday, WTI crude broke through its 1980’s highs to hit a new all-time record price of $78.77/bbl, and looks poised to push on past $80/bbl. And adding to the sense of ‘retro’ is the news that debt traders have revived the 1980’s children’s TV show ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ as an acronym. NINJA now stands for No INcome, Job or Assets

Normally a 275 point fall on Wall Street, and a 600 point fall in Hong Kong, would make for some headlines. But this time, the media coverage has been very muted. Presumably everybody thinks it will be another '9 day wonder', and believes with Chuck Prince of Citigroup that one simply has to keep ‘dancing'. But equally, there are some quite worrying opinions now being expressed about the underlying risks that might impact us later in the year or in 2008. I thought you might like to see them:

‘What we saw last month was a toy trainset model of what is in store for us with the unwinding of the great credit bubble’. John Dizard, Financial Times markets commentator.

(NB the first and last quotes are from the Financial Times, which unfortunately has a subscription only policy for its stories, so I haven't included the link details in order to avoid frustration if you tried to click through).

An interesting thing has happened to benzene markets, which I haven’t seen noted elsewhere. According to ICIS pricing, average prices last week in Europe, US Gulf and Asia were $1053/t, $1052/t and $1040/t respectively.

And is the fact that benzene prices have only increased by 26% since July 2005, whilst Brent crude oil prices have moved 34%, also telling us something about the growing difficulty of passing higher oil prices down the chain?

Two of the largest US auto manufacturers, GM and Ford, have now followed Wal-Mart and Tesco’s lead in detecting a change in consumer sentiment. GM, after announcing particularly strong Q2 Asian and emerging market sales, added that US sales declined 7% as a result of ‘increasing fuel prices and concerns about housing’. Ford said that their US sales had declined 19% in July, and talked of ‘sobering’ economic challenges.

This is bad news for chemicals demand, if it continues. 70% of US GDP is consumer-related. Housing and autos are two major components – if they continue to deteriorate, then we could be in for a sticky patch in Q4. Those CEO’s now working on the cost leadership programmes that I proposed in mid-July will not feel inclined to relax their preparations after this news.

Yesterday, the ECB (European Central Bank) provided an unprecedented €95bn into the region’s credit markets, to maintain liquidity. Otherwise, firms would have had problems paying their bills, and employees might not have been paid their wages. This is serious stuff, and it was followed by the US Fed providing $24bn into US markets, and the Bank of Japan with ¥1trn of assistance this morning.

However, last month’s warning by the BIS (the central bankers’ bank), is also relevant. So far, as they forecast, we have indeed only seen ‘a tendency for national authorities to go it alone’. There has also been the ‘international dialogue’ between the ECB, Fed and BoJ to which they referred. But are the right institutional processes in place, in case today’s financial crisis gives more signs that it might start to impact the real economy in which chemical industry people live and work? One wonders.

All the world’s media are now carrying accounts of the ‘liar loans’ and fraud that has accompanied the growth in US mortgage lending in recent years. How did this come about?

The only problem is that the whole story may turn out to have been an illusion. The CEO of Countrywide, the largest US mortgage broker, said last month that `we are experiencing home price depreciation almost like never before, with the exception of the Great Depression'.

Credit market problems intensified last week, even though stock markets rallied strongly until Wednesday. I thought you might like to see some more comments on what is going on, from people close to the action.

Ben Bernanke, Fed Chairman, ‘wrote extensively in the 1980s about the causes of the Great Depression. He argued that the Fed could have prevented the damaging bank runs if it had provided the necessary liquidity, as he is trying to do now, thus calming depositors instead of forcing banks to turn them away empty-handed’. New York Times.

When I worked with ChemConnect in the halcyon days of the dot-com era in 1999-2000, we had a fantastic PR lady called Linda Stegeman. Linda ignored conventional wisdom about 'bundling' all your best news together to gain maximum impact. Instead, she released the stories one by one, and let them build. First Dow and Rohm & Haas investing; then BASF, BP, Borealis and Bayer; then SABIC; then Mitsui and Mitsubishi, and so on. The impact was extraordinary, particularly for a new company with neither sales nor income to report.

Linda called the technique 'rolling thunder', and I was reminded of her when I read this morning that Goldman Sachs were now having to invest $2bn to bail out their Global Equities Opportunities hedge fund. Over the weekend, the papers had been full of reports that US banks were refusing to lend to anyone without a '212' (eg New York) telephone area code, after last week's losses in Europe and Asia. But yesterday, the 'rolling thunder' of the subprime story returned to N America again.

And, of course, every time it completes a circle around the globe, it takes a new twist. First time around, it was about poor Americans losing their homes. Then it became one of central banks trying to avoid a credit crunch. What's next? Maybe what has been, until now, a purely financial story, is about to impact the real economy? As my wife commented over breakfast - '$2bn is a lot of shoes and handbags that the bankers won't be buying this autumn'.

The subprime parallel then wouldn't be with LTCM or other 'financial' problems. It would be with major disasters such as Penn Square Bank, which went bust in 1982 and nearly brought down much of the US banking system with it. A wonderful book by Mark Singer called 'Funny Money' was written in 1985, just as I arrived in Houston, Texas, to trade petrochemicals. Its dust cover reads 'For the better part of a decade, there had existed a virtually global belief: the price of petroleum and everything that depended on it would go no way than up'.

I have the feeling there may well be a similar book written in a few years time, when the dust has settled on subprime, which simply changes the word 'petroleum' for 'housing'.

The past two Thursdays have seen extraordinary things happen in financial markets.

We are not yet at the point where the real economy, in which we all live and work, is necessarily going to nosedive into recession. But a few more Thursdays like these will certainly test its robustness. We could well be close to finding out, as the old English nursery rhyme says, that ‘Thursday’s child has far to go’.

Some 20 years ago, after a couple of senior management jobs, I was sent off to study for a month at the IMD business school in Switzerland.

There I spent time with Prof Jim Ellert, a noted financial analyst, who showed us how to understand a P&L and a balance sheet. He also passed on several powerful lessons about how to run, and not to run, a business.

His major lesson was about the danger of leverage. His demonstration was very simple, using standard assumptions for interest costs and tax, and stays with me today:

• No leverage. In a good year, a company's earnings might rise 30%, or fall 10% in a bad year. Return on equity (ROE) would swing from 18% to -6%. Nothing earth-shattering there.
• 50% debt ratio. Then in a good year, ROE would hit 30%, but be -18% in a bad one. Things could get tricky.
• 90% debt ratio. In a good year, ROE would hit a fabulous 126%, but in a bad year would be -114%. The company would be bankrupt.

The seeming genius of many private equity funds in recent years has been due to nothing more than the application of high leverage during the 'up' part of the business cycle. As and when we go into the 'down' cycle, leverage will exert its same impact on the downside.

If I was a CEO preparing my cost-leadership programme for rollout next month, I would include strict guidelines about how to manage credit risks with highly leveraged customers. Cash before delivery is an excellent principle, if one wants to avoid one's own company being hit by a string of bad debts.

Some of these quotes just seemed too good to ignore…

Clearly the Fed’s move on Friday will help to improve liquidity in the financial markets, so that companies can borrow to pay their bills, and employees can get their wages on time. But will it encourage lenders to relax lending standards again? This will probably depend on whether there are any more skeletons to emerge from the subprime cupboard.

It used to be said that ‘if the US sneezes, the rest of the world will catch a cold’. Well, the US is certainly sneezing as a result of its subprime financial crisis, but the rest of the world doesn’t seem to be taking too much notice, as least so far.

When we look back on the events of 2007, this major initiative may well be seen as being one of its key developments.

The report in today's 'Financial Times' that Barclays Bank has lost 'several hundred million dollars', means that the UK has now joined every other global financial centre in suffering from the US subprime mortgage crisis. The news followed Friday's 5% drop in the value of Bank of China's shares, after it revealed it held $9.7bn of securities backed by sub-prime loans.

The question now is whether this purely financial crisis will roll over into the real economy? So far, the signs are hopeful that it won't. The latest weekly Economic Report from Kevin Swift at the American Chemistry Council actually shows a slight improvement in its running tab of positive indicators to 16 out of 20.

And outside the USA, the ACC report shows that 'global chemical industry production expanded in July', offsetting a revised decline during June. It says that the 'improvement was broad-based and was strongest in Africa and the Middle East and in Central and Eastern Europe.'

However, Kevin does caution that key US indicators such as durable goods orders and leading economic indicators may not yet be fully reflecting recent financial turmoil. Whilst the US National Association of Realtors reported yesterday that the median US house price fell in July for a record twelfth consecutive month, and is now 0.6% lower than a year ago.

At the moment, liquidity seems to be improving again in financial markets, and some confidence has returned. But as I noted on 10 August, US house prices haven't declined nationally since the Great Depression. With median wages static, and falling house prices, will US consumers decide to cut back their spending? And will lenders be happy to continue lending to them, if they need to borrow more to maintain their spending?

The subprime crisis is too recent for anyone to know the answers to these questions. But people are already beginning to return from the beach, as the summer holiday season comes to an end in the northern hemisphere. As we move into September, we may therefore begin to discover whether the Barclays news marks the end of the current financial crisis, or is a prologue to its extension into the real economy.

You may remember that the Chairman of Sinopec, Chen Tonghai, suddenly resigned last June. This prompted plenty of discussion about whether there had been a disagreement with the government over the level of subsidies paid to keep domestic oil product prices low.

Now, this morning, China’s Finance Minister, Jin Renqing, has also quit. There are suggestions that this reflects rising official concern over accelerating Chinese inflation and the surging stock market. The timing is also a surprise, coming as it does just 6 weeks before the 5 yearly Communist Party Congress, and is sure to prompt questions about possible policy changes.

However, according to AFX News, there is another side to the story, and the two resignations are linked. They quote a report in Hong Kong’s Ming Pao newspaper that says ‘Jin was sacked after he introduced a woman to Chen’, and she then became Chen’s mistress. They add that ‘the relationship between Jin and the unnamed woman was unclear’.

The role of Finance Minister in China is fairly critical in today's global economy, as is the Chairmanship of Sinopec. One waits to see whether more will emerge about whether policy, or personal, reasons were behind these sudden departures. Do any readers have more information that they could share with us?

The war of words between OPEC (the oil producers’ club) and the International Energy Agency (the rich countries energy watchdog), has intensified this week, ahead of the next OPEC Ministerial meeting scheduled for 11 September.

Claude Mandil, director general of the IEA, told Arab Oil and Gas ‘the market has become aware’ that OPEC ‘has set an implicit new objective of keeping prices at or around $70/bbl and that the organisation is trying to defend this level.’ If true, this would be a further significant increase on the presumed previous target of around $50/bbl. In turn, of course, this is a long way from OPEC’s targets of $28-30/bbl a few years ago, or $18-20/bbl a decade ago.

Mandil went on to say that the current price ‘could, as we have often said, weigh on global economic growth. It is from now that the refineries must start working harder to satisfy winter demand. We therefore need more crude oil but, unfortunately, signs from OPEC do not give us much hope of this’. These are strong words, and clearly part of a co-ordinated lobbying campaign, as Mandil’s deputy then went on to tell the Financial Times that ‘$70/bbl was too high and a threat to the world economy’.

However, OPEC’s Secretary General Abdulla el-Badri told Bloomberg ‘there's enough oil in the market, we don't know what to do with it. I assure you that if there's any shortage, we will supply more crude to the market, but I think the market is really stable at this time.’ Putting this comment in context, the Financial Times commented that ‘before the US subprime lending crisis, oil-consuming countries had hoped OPEC would raise production next month’.

OPEC is, of course, haunted by the echoes of its decision in November 1997 to increase oil production just as the Asian financial crisis began to hit demand. This took oil prices down to a $10/bbl low in 1999. They do not want to make the same mistake again. And the fact that the Chinese economy is likely to grow at high rates, at least until after next year’s Olympics’, means that Chinese demand for oil may also rise strongly, irrespective of any problems in the US.

The role of financial speculators also complicates the issue. Hedge funds have been selling oil recently to pay margin calls on their subprime investments, and if this pattern continues, then prices could fall further in the short term, irrespective of the underlying supply/demand balance. As recently as early July, as I commented at the time, hedge funds were still buying crude, and went on to drive it to a $78/bbl peak by early August, from its $51/bbl low in January.

Whatever OPEC and the IEA would like, volatility will continue to be the name of the game in oil markets for the next few months. There are just too many unknowns for consensus to develop.

I first wrote about the subprime crisis two months ago, as it began to be noticed in the press. Housing represents an important source of chemicals demand, and so it seemed to have potentially major implications for the chemical industry. Since then, it has become clear that the crisis could have far-reaching implications, if not properly handled. I therefore thought it might be useful to summarise the insights I have gained via a letter to the Financial Times, which they have kindly published this morning. I thought you might like to see it.

From Mr Paul Hodges.

Sir, There is another reason Washington should follow your excellent advice and "resist" the urge to intervene in the subprime crisis ("Subprime loans - subprime solutions", editorial September 1). This is that the scale of the problem is probably too large for any congressional action to be effective.

Even Congress would surely balk at the amount of money that this scale of intervention would require. Unfortunately, therefore, the myth behind the US housing mania is likely to become increasingly transparent, as the fallout from it widens.

Published: September 4 2007 03:00 | Last updated: September 4 2007 03:00

This week has seen more downbeat news on US auto and housing sales.

Ford said their total August vehicle sales were down 14% versus August 2006, and that their car sales were down by an amazing 34%. Toyota, who have been growing market share, said they were down 2.8% in total, and that their car sales were down 8%. GM bucked the trend with total vehicle sales up 5%, although they didn’t break out car sales, and did note there had been a ‘double digit decline in daily rental sales so far this year’. Chrysler, who mainly focus on trucks, said their sales were down 6%.

The accompanying comments to the sales figures were also concerning, with words such as ‘challenging’ and ‘competitive’ being used to describe current market conditions. Typical was Jim Lentz, EVP of Toyota, who said that ‘reduced credit tied to the subprime squeeze challenged consumer confidence this month’.

Housing is the other main driver for US chemical demand, and here the National Association of Realtors (NAR) posted a worrying 12% decline in their index of pending home sales for July, even before August’s turbulence. The NAR regard the index as a forward-looking indicator, and its fall prompted them to sound an unusually downbeat note about prospects, saying that ‘existing-home sales are likely to decline in coming months as mortgage disruptions work their way through the housing market’.

Early news on August sales from key retailers such as Wal-Mart also confirms that 'price leadership initiatives' are proving important in maintaining sales volumes. So July and August seem to be indicating that more difficult times may lie ahead. In the English countryside, the movements of migratory birds are often used as a sign of the changing seasons, although a rustic proverb reminds one that the mere sighting of ‘two swallows’ doesn’t necessarily indicate the arrival of summer.

Similarly, one does need to be cautious in predicting a downturn, based on the sighting of a slowing in retail markets over just two months. But unless there is a significant improvement in September, we will probably have to accept that the good times have already ended.

There’s an interesting indication today of the changes taking place in the Chinese economy. Bloomberg are reporting that Blackstone, the US private equity group, is to purchase around 18% of specialty chemical company China BlueStar for $500m. This will be Blackstone’s first Chinese investment, and follows the Chinese government’s $3bn investment into Blackstone in June.

The report is also interesting for the detail it provides about the way the deal has been structured. We already knew that China had decided to move some of its considerable US$ holdings into equity-type investments, via the establishment of a $200bn Sovereign Wealth Fund. The investment in Blackstone was clearly signalled as being part of a strategy to use selected Western companies to help them invest this money wisely.

And it is true, of course, that Blackstone do have a long-standing interest in chemicals. How can one forget their investment in Celanese in April 2004?

They spotted an anomaly between the ratings of chemical companies listed in Frankfurt and New York, and bought Celanese (which had 60% of its assets in the US) for $3bn. They then loaded up the company with $3.2bn of debt, before IPOing it 9 months later. According to Forbes, this meant that by June 2005, Blackstone had achieved a return of $3.1bn in exchange for its original $650m stake, whilst retaining a significant equity stake in the company.

But the structure of the deal with China is different. German investors complained bitterly after the pyrotechnics with Celanese. China seems to have played its hand much more carefully.

Blackstone may still do well, but is acting more as a ‘hired hand’ than as an individual entrepreneur. BlueStar had initially intended to raise $300m in an Hong Kong IPO, but under Blackstone this will be deferred to the end of next year (probably no bad thing given the current problems in financial markets). Blackstone will also be charged with integrating BlueStar’s French holdings (Drakker and the silicone business bought from Rhodia), before grouping the assets for a listing.

It therefore gets to do all the work, whilst paying $500m upfront for the privilege. But China National Chemical will remain the biggest shareholder in the company, and so will still reap its share of any rewards that Blackstone may generate. Whilst China’s holding in Blackstone means it will also profit from the latter’s success.

One of the benefits of writing this blog is that it provides the opportunity to research behind the headlines, and better understand what is really happening. Friday’s US payrolls report, which showed the first loss of US jobs for 4 years, is a classic example.

Nobody in the chemical industry should have been too surprised by the report. Dow’s CEO Andfrew Liveris was already emphasising, when reporting Q2 results, ‘continued weakness in the North American housing and automotive sectors’. BASF Chairman Jürgen Hambrecht similarly anticipated ‘large variations (in growth) from region to region’. Hambrecht added that the main risks to the world economy were ‘the renewed significant rise in the price of oil, the weak U.S. dollar, and tension in conflict areas around the world.’

It is also noticeable, as Bloomberg reports, that Fed Governors themselves are not joining the chorus from Wall Street and US Presidential candidates for big US interest rate cuts. On Thursday, when they must have known the payroll news, both Thomas Hoenig of the Kansas Fed, and Dennis Lockhart of the Atlanta Fed, said they hadn't seen sure signs of a housing spillover into the broader economy. St. Louis Fed President William Poole and the Dallas Fed's Richard Fisher added that the effects of the turmoil so far were unclear.

After Friday’s report, the IMF’s MD, Rodrigo Rato, agreed that there was ‘a serious crisis,’ and confirmed the Dow/BASF view that US growth is slowing. But his concern was quite different from Wall Street’s, as he went on to warn that that the real problem is that ‘systemically important banks may face constraints in extending credit.’

I share Rato’s view that the current US subprime lending crisis is about concerns over return of capital, not return on capital. Would cutting rates encourage lenders to lend more? Probably not. It might well make them more reluctant, by reducing their potential reward. It might also weaken the dollar, as overseas investors looked for higher returns elsewhere.

Over the past decade, as I argued earlier this year in the Financial Times, central bankers have too often confused being ‘market-friendly’ with being ‘friendly to markets’. Today, Philadelphia Fed President, Charles Prosser, lines up alongside his colleagues in trying to avoid this trap. He argues in a Hawaii speech that ‘disruptions in financial markets can be addressed using the tools available to the Federal Reserve, without necessarily having to make a shift in the overall direction of monetary policy'.

Will the Fed give in next week, and give the crowds what they want? If they do, they may well end up adding to the very problem they are trying to solve.

OPEC are sounding a note of concern about the impact of high oil prices on the world economy. Hasan Qabazar, OPEC’s chief economist said yesterday ‘We are trying, hopefully, to reduce high oil prices, to have prices that are more conducive to economic development’.

Qabazar also emphasised OPEC’s desire to help counter any impact from the subprime downturn in the US, stating that this had put ‘some clouds’ over the forecast for global GDP growth of 5% next year. ‘We are trying to avert a slowdown’, he added, as ‘we are afraid that prices may play a part in the slowdown, and we want to avert that if possible’.

Oil traders ignored OPEC's comments today, sending NYMEX prices to a new record $79.29/bbl. They also ignored OPEC’s two agreements to increase quotas by 500,000 bbls/day, and to ‘normalise’ the basic quota in line with recent actual production (which effectively added another 900,000 bbls/day to the quota). Even the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) decision to reduce its Q4 demand estimate by 250,000 bbls/day, and its 2008 demand estimate by further 180,000 bbls/day, had no impact on the euphoria.

This does support the CGES view, mentioned here on 5 July, that players in oil futures markets are trend followers rather than leaders. Most of the ‘technical charts’ appear to show that oil prices remain in an upturn, and are poised to break $80/bbl. This supposed ‘momentum’ drives the ‘paper’ traders to buy more, encouraged by the widespread consensus that the oil price doesn’t matter any more to the world economy.

The IEA has played a key role in sustaining this idea, with its continuing forecasts of large increases in demand. So it is interesting that it has now begun to reverse itself on this critical point. Having just been in Asia, it would certainly seem that higher oil prices there are already affecting demand in those countries where subsidies don’t exist. And they are also prompting subsidising governments to review the level of support that they can afford to provide.

My own view is that the liquidity boom in financial markets and the high oil price may well have been inter-connected. The ready availability of credit meant that consumers (and governments) could borrow, instead of having to cut back expenditure as the higher costs of oil reduced their cash-flow. Now, however, we are entering a credit squeeze, and growth in US gasoline demand has already begun to slow.

Futures traders may well continue to ignore OPEC for a while, and the risk to supply from geo-political events remains very real, so one cannot discount the potential for even higher prices, if circumstances conspire together. This could make an already difficult situation worse. Higher oil prices have always slowed the world economy in the past. Their impact may have been deferred this time, but it is hard to believe that it has been avoided.

When the US subprime crisis began, we were assured by the ‘experts’ that it was only a small problem, involving a minor segment of an otherwise robust market. However, the more one read about the situation, the more untenable this view seemed to be.

Equally, we were told by other ‘experts’ that there was no danger of any spillover into other countries. Again, this reassurance began to seem equally simplistic after it became apparent that subprime loans had in fact been parcelled up and sold around the world. But even when the IKB and Sachsen banks had to be rescued in Germany, other ‘experts’ rushed to tell us that this was really due to issues relating to the German banking system.

So one wonders what these ‘experts’ will rush to tell us today, on the news that the UK’s Northern Rock bank, responsible for 18.9% of UK mortgage lending, and with over GBP 100 billion in assets, has had to rescued by the Bank of England, acting as 'lender of last resort'? Whilst we wait to be told not to panic, us non-experts are probably safe in drawing the following conclusions:

• The liquidity crisis in the banking sector is getting worse, not better. The underlying problem is that banks have been borrowing in the short-term money markets to lend long-term. This is very profitable whilst it lasts, but the US Savings & Loans collapse of the 1980’s is a reminder of how it can all go very badly wrong if short-term lending dries up.
• Banks are usually very keen to lend you money when you don’t need it, but are very quick to withdraw at the first hint of trouble. One doubts that other banks will rush to fill the void in the UK mortgage market that will be caused by whatever retrenchment now takes place at Northern Rock. So even normally well-qualified home buyers may find it more difficult to borrow in future.
• Housing has been a main source of support for the Western economies in recent years. Low interest rates encouraged more buyers to enter the market, and the laws of supply/demand worked to push up prices as a result. This allowed homeowners to release equity from their home via remortgaging, and kept consumer spending strong. This virtuous circle is now in danger of becoming a vicious circle, as lenders tighten standards to more normal levels again.

There is one ‘expert’, however, whose judgement I have learnt to trust over the years. Warren Buffett spotted the underlying risks posed by financial derivatives as long ago as 2003. He described them then as being ‘financial weapons of mass destruction’, and warned that they could end by creating ‘a mega-catastrophic risk’ for the economy. One just hopes he is not proved right.

Extraordinary events have taken place in the UK since my posting on Friday:

• A bankrun took place on the 8th largest bank, Northern Rock, with lines of depositors queuing for hours outside its branches all over the weekend and Monday.
• Faced with this, the UK Finance Minister was forced to announce that the government would guarantee all deposits in the bank, regardless of size. Previously, savers would have received a maximum of £31,700 in the event of default.
• Shares in Northern Rock closed below £3 last night, having been over £12 as recently as February.
• Shares of the other two banks that have fuelled the growth in UK subprime lending, Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley, have also fallen heavily since Thursday. A&L fell 30% yesterday as the storm intensified.

On 12 July, I wrote that ‘the problems in the US subprime mortgage sector…have the potential to become a global hurricane’. The problem now is that, unlike a normal hurricane, this one seems to gather more force each time it touches down.

As I noted on 14 August, it started with ‘rolling thunder’ and its main impact was on poor Americans, who were losing their homes. Then, as it circled again, central banks were in the eye of the storm as they tried to avoid a credit crunch. I forecast that if they failed, the next impact would be on the real economy, as housing and autos have been a mainstay of chemical and polymer demand in recent years:

• The construction industry boomed in those economies where housing markets have been strong.
• ‘Equity release’ provided consumers with more money to spend on chemical-intensive purchases such as autos
• In turn, chemical demand surged in the export-oriented, emerging economies of Asia.

Since July 14, I have been advocating that CEO’s should develop ‘a major cost-leadership programme’, ready for the end of the summer vacation. Unless the US Federal Reserve can pull a rabbit out of its hat at today’s meeting, it will now be time for this programme to be rolled out.

Well, now we know. Interviewed by the Financial Times on Monday, Alan Greenspan rejected the widely-held belief that central banks are now independent. Throwing aside his normal caution, the former US Federal Reserve Chairman said quite bluntly that ‘the presumption that we were fully independent and have full discretion was false’.

This is a worrying statement, as the concept of independence from political control is integral to the market’s confidence in the ability of central banks to control inflation. It is therefore perhaps not too surprising to find Greenspan also commenting in the same interview that he ‘sees oil going to $100/bbl’.

Coincidentally, on the same day, Goldman Sachs (GS) provided a potential rationale for this scenario when they issued a report that raised their 2008 oil price target to $95/bbl. They see the key driver for this increase as being the fact that ‘the oil industry has added very little new, low-cost, production capacity as it has run into technological and political bottlenecks that will likely take years to resolve’.

GS also believe that ‘costs have continued to rise, pushing marginal costs closer to $70/bbl’. If they are correct, this represents a sea-change in expectations. All through the early 1980’s, we in the chemical industry argued that with marginal production costs only $5/bbl, it was inconceivable that oil could remain at the then current level of $30/bbl in an over-supplied market.

But if Goldman’s analysis is right, then we will soon be in the opposite situation. Heavy crude now accounts for much of the world’s current spare oil capacity. Many refineries cannot process it, making effective supply/demand for lighter crudes much tighter. And in these circumstances, it is the marginal cost that will again set the price.

This could have ‘severe’ implications for polymer producers, as Goldman’s James Yong notes. He foresees a potential ‘squeeze coming from both the feedstock as well as the polyolefins side’, as feedstock costs rise just as the new Middle East/Asian capacity starts to arrive next year.

Shell and Saudi Aramco have now confirmed plans to spend $7bn to build what they term ‘the first new refinery in the U.S. in more than 30 years’. They will achieve this by adding 325,000 barrels per day (b/d) to their existing Port Arthur, Texas, facility, taking total capacity to 600,000 b/d. It is scheduled to come on stream in 2010.

Refining capacity has been tight in the US for many years, due to historically low refining profitability and environmental difficulties in siting new refineries. Both these factors have changed over the past couple of years. Post Hurricane Katrina, refining profitability has been very strong, whilst President Bush recently even offered to allocate military land to help overcome environmental issues.

When completed, the Port Arthur refinery complex will be the largest in the US, ahead of Exxon Mobil’s 562,000 b/d at Baytown, Texas. It will be able to process ‘heavy crudes’, for which refining capacity is currently short around the world, and will supply Shell’s 7700 gasoline outlets in the Eastern and Southern USA.

There are two elements of this announcement that are of particular interest to the petchem industry. The first is the degree of cost escalation now taking place in major construction projects. In April 2006, Shell estimated that the expansion cost would be around $3bn. But this has now more than doubled over the past 18 months. One assumes also that Bechtel/Jacobs will be taking much less of the risk of cost over-runs as well.

The project also confirms gasoline’s increasing importance within the major oil companies. And with new gasoline-focused refineries being planned all round the world, there is a clear danger of naphtha production becoming a ‘poor relation’. This could keep petchem feedstock prices relatively high, even after gasoline margins return to more normal levels.

A week ago, I wrote that it would be important to see if ‘the US Federal Reserve can pull a rabbit out of its hat’ at its meeting later that day. The dust has now settled on its 0.5% Fed Funds rate cut, and one can see that short term liquidity has certainly been improved, although at the cost of weakening the US dollar.

Equally, US 2 year rates today are virtually unchanged from a week ago, at 4.05%. The same is true for 5 and 10 year rates at 4.30% and 4.63% respectively. This indicates that the main effect of the Fed’s cut was only to improve liquidity in the short-term money markets. In turn, of course, this encouraged the restoration of overnight and 3 month lending between banks, and also enabled stocks to rally.

The other main impact of the cut was to weaken the US dollar. Against the euro, the dollar had been trading above 0.72 euros, but it is now below 0.71 euros. It also dropped marginally against the yen, from around 115 yen to 114 yen, even though there was a political vacuum in Japan due to Premier Abe’s surprise resignation. More surprisingly, the Canadian dollar is now trading above parity with its US cousin, for the first time in over 30 years.

This consistent pattern of US dollar weakness suggests that the Fed’s move has disturbed overseas investors. They have been financing the US deficit for some years, and so an overnight retreat into euros or yen would still seem unlikely. But Asian and Middle Eastern holders of dollar assets are clearly feeling more nervous than a week ago.

Overall, then, the Fed probably achieved its main short-term goal, of restoring liquidity to the markets. But in so doing, it has opened up new questions about its commitment to fighting inflation, and therefore caused investors to question its underlying commitment to a strong dollar.

And back in the ‘real economy’, today’s Case-Shiller index showed record US house price falls in July, even before the credit crunch hit in August. It must therefore now be time for chemical companies to start battening down the hatches, and rolling out the cost-leadership programme that we began to discuss here in early July.

Dow CEO Andrew Liveris has spelled out very clearly his concerns about the impact of the US subprime crisis and high energy prices. He said that last week’s Fed Funds cut ‘flirted with danger’ in terms of the risks it took with inflation, although it was clearly necessary in order to tackle other problem areas.

Liveris’ comments echo those made here in recent weeks, and are striking for their clarity. Speaking to a Credit Suisse investment conference yesterday, he said that ‘the jury is out as to what next year will look like’ and added that:

• ‘The trend line in US housing is still in the wrong direction – it will be the end of next year before we see any flicker of improvement'.
• There is a real fear that the US housing crisis and high energy prices will ‘more than trickle over into consumers’ spending’
• ‘The future of the US ethylene industry is uncertain’. He believes that recent private equity deals are 'being done on a run for cash basis’, and that it is ‘almost impossible to compete on the basis of $6/MMBTU gas’ versus $2/MMBTU in the Middle East.

Liveris has been warning of potential problems in housing and autos for a year. Yesterday’s presentation made it clear that recent developments have only added to his concerns about the economic outlook.

It seems likely that this week’s European Petrochemical Association annual meeting in Berlin will mark a turning point in the petchem cycle.

Looking back over 2007, Boy Litjens, CEO of Sabic Europe, told ICIS@EPCA that performance this year had been ‘excellent’, and that they would ‘definitely report the best results ever’. He was also hopeful about the outlook for 2008, but thought that 2009 onwards might prove to be ‘difficult years’ for the industry.

Litjens went on to add, however, that ‘I am realistic enough to say that somewhere in 2008 and 2009 the economy is going to turn down’. But in his view, the pressure from new Middle Eastern and Asian capacity won’t really begin to be felt ‘until the fourth quarter’. So the key issue is whether demand begins to turn down before this.

The views that I picked up on this issue over the 4 days were mixed. The US market definitely seems to be weakening, and although European and Asian demand is still robust, industry margins are coming under pressure:

• There seemed no doubt in the minds of US delegates that the US housing market will get worse (some thought a lot worse) before it bottoms. This means there will be a lot less demand for chemicals/polymers in this important sector.
• However, US producers were encouraged by the decline in the US dollar, and hoped that this would enable them to compensate for lower domestic sales via increased exports to Asia, and Europe.
• European producers generally saw demand continuing to be strong, although many noted that the major downstream buyers were taking a more aggressive stance on pricing.
• Asian delegates, particularly those from China and India, remained very confident. They see strong demand in their domestic markets out till at least 2010.
• Feedstock pricing and availability was a major concern for everyone with whom we spoke. The volatility seen during 2007 is expected to continue, and this makes margin forecasting much more difficult.

It used to be said that ‘if America sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold’. My sense from our EPCA meetings is that we may find ourselves needing to rewrite this phrase, if housing and subprime problems do tip the US economy into recession next year. This might cause us to discover instead that ‘when America catches a cold, the rest of the world sneezes’.

Its now 3 months since we first saw the impact of the subprime crisis. At that time, the main impact was on poor Americans, who were losing their homes. Then, in August, banks stopped lending to each other, causing credit conditions to tighten. By September, central banks were fighting fires on several fronts:

• Injecting billions into money markets to improve liquidity
• Bailing out major mortgage lenders such as Northern Rock in the UK
• Cutting interest rates in the US by 0.5% to help avert recession

Their activities continue to be the focus of attention, but at the same time the American Chemical Council (ACC) have performed a useful service in a recent weekly report by reminding us that the original problem in housing is still getting worse, not better.

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As their chart shows, new home sales are now down 21% on a year ago, and existing homes sales down 12%. The inventory of new homes is at its highest level for 16 years, whilst that for existing homes is at an all-time record high of 10 months. Equally, the ACC comments that ‘the pace of monthly (house) price declines is accelerating as tightening mortgage lending standards and a slowing economy suggest the housing downturn will last into 2008’.

This does not bode well for future chemical demand in this important sector.

Coal-to-chemicals just took a further step towards becoming a major source of chemical production once again.

Yesterday, major coal producer Shenhua Energy listed on the Shanghai stock exchange, and saw its shares jump 93% to value it at $173bn. Shenhua is the world’s second largest seller of coal, after the US’s Peabody Energy, and it now becomes the world’s largest IPO this year.

This is part of a process by which huge sums of money are now being raised in China to finance industrial development. As I noted on June 22, PetroChina started the trend by successfully raising $5.6bn, to help finance its proposed 6 new ethylene cracker projects, as well as to develop new oilfields and construct new refineries.

Shenhua Energy is going down the same expansionary route. Having consolidated many of China’s coal companies over the past decade, Shenhua is now looking to invest in a range of coal, power and transportation projects. It aims to produce 200 million tonnes of coal in 2010, compared to 137 million last year, as well as 20,000 megawatts of electricity.

In addition, and critically for the chemical industry, it plans to ramp up its activity in the coal-to-liquids and coal-to-chemicals sectors. It has already partnered with Dow Chemical in planning to build a world-scale coal-to-chemicals complex in Shaanxi province. This intends to use ‘clean coal’ technologies to produce ethylene and propylene, as well as a chlor-alkali unit and a wide range of derivatives.

The chemical business started life by adding value to coal, and the impact of higher oil prices seems to be re-opening this route as an economic source of feedstock for the future. With 66 billion yuan now in the bank post IPO, nobody should doubt Shenhua’s ability to finance its ambitious plans.

The price of a product is a key factor in determining the profitability of producing and using it. And a transparent pricing structure encourages liquidity, which enables price discovery to take place more easily between buyers and sellers. This is why I have long been a supporter of the London Metals Exchange (LME) initiative to trade futures contracts in PP and LLDPE.

At the moment, pricing in the cracker and thermoplastic sector involves a long chain of players, many of whom have differing agendas and priorities. The actual producers and users of the products rarely get to negotiate prices directly with each other. Instead, the main buy-sell relationship today is often with a converter. As a result, much pricing is done on a lagged basis, so the ultimate sales price is often not known until well after the product has left the factory gate.

This ‘lag’ also creates an opportunity for playing the market. Converters, for example, can build stock if they see feedstock prices rising, and reduce it when prices fall again. But this is not a zero-sum game, as cracker operators and polymer producers then have to respond by adjusting operating rates up or down (always very expensive). Equally, unnecessary polymer imports and exports take place, as players down the chain respond to confusing signals about demand trends.

This is why I was glad to see in the MF Global daily plastics report this week that some players, at least, are now starting to hedge LLDPE and PP by using a monthly average price based on the LME prices. This is only a small step forward, but anything that makes it easier for producers and consumers to better manage their business is to be warmly welcomed.

Hopefully it will also encourage others to experiment with LME trading. As the downturn edges ever nearer, it will become increasingly vital to have an accurate picture of underlying demand. Today’s lack of transparency and liquidity in pricing will otherwise extract a major cost in terms of lower profitability throughout the value chain.

BP and Reliance Industries are both powerhouses in their own fields. BP’s new CEO, Tony Hayward, has just given his first interview in the new job. Comparing, and contrasting, his comments with last week’s AGM statement by Reliance’s Chairman, Mukesh Ambani, is very revealing in terms of content as well as tone.

Hayward’s interview in the Financial Times showed him as making a decisive break with the Lord Browne era. He believes that the company had done a ‘fantastic job assembling a great set of assets, but a much poorer job in really making them run efficiently’. He also ‘admitted that morale at BP was poor, and that the company had been failing to recognise and reward excellence among its employees’.

Over the same period, of course, BP has divested much of their petchems business via the Innovene sale to INEOS. But according to Hayward, they have still managed to ‘increase the complexity of BP’s structure’, as a result of which ‘it is so tough to get things done’ within BP.

Ambani, of course, had no need to eat humble pie. He titled his talk ‘Towards a quantum leap’, and in it he set out the major changes now underway in Reliance’s portfolio. From small beginnings with a single polyester plant, Reliance is now the world leader. And Ambani announced a move from 1.9 MT to 4.5 MT of PX capacity, in association with the refinery expansion at Jamnagar.

The site will also feature 2 MT of new olefins capacity, with further expansion already planned. Ambani explained that the petchem business now aims to ‘follow the path to global leadership set by the polyester business’. Reliance has also become one of the top 20 private upstream companies in the world, and he revealed that they are now planning to invest a further $4bn to build on the success of the past 7 years.

But even Reliance now needs to make a number of major strategic shifts. Ambani accepts, for example, that although they have been able to focus on organic growth to date, ‘acquisition’ will have to become a more important part of their growth process. He also accepts this will require a shift in mind-set, towards ‘partnership’ and more JVs of the type carried out with Chevron in the Jamnagar refinery expansion.

What is interesting about both Hayward and Ambani’s viewpoints is the stress that they lay on operational expertise. Reliance’s success to date, like BP’s in the past, has been based upon their ability to deliver. To recapture excellence in this area must be Hayward’s objective for BP, if he is to achieve the turnaround he targets.

There has been a noted change of tone from leading policymakers in the past few days. Gone is the jaunty confidence that the world economy is ‘fundamentally sound’. This has been replaced by a sense that debt market problems may have a wider impact than first expected.

US Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, typified the new tone when warning this week that the US subprime problem will ‘continue to adversely impact our economy, our capital markets, and many homeowners for some time yet’. His downbeat assessment was all the more remarkable as it followed his success over the weekend in establishing a $75bn ‘superfund’ to help support the asset-backed commercial paper market.

Instead of spinning this fund as the answer to recent problems, Paulson seemed to be going out of his way to reduce expectations about a quick recovery. This also seems to be the approach being taken by the IMF, which has cut its forecast for world growth and warned that the US$ may still fall further.

The IMF is still forecasting a relatively strong year in 2008, with 4.75% GDP growth compared to 5.2% this year. But it commented that ‘the risks to the outlook look firmly on the downside, centring around the concern that financial market strains could continue and trigger a more pronounced global slowdown’.

Equally, its comment that ‘the weakening dollar was part of a normal process of economic rebalancing’ is likely to raise concerns in parts of Europe, and Asia, that the US is quietly pursuing a policy of ‘beggar my neighbour’ via currency devaluation.

The new note of realism by policymakers is very welcome if it leads them to debate robust solutions to the present crisis. But if frankness merely leads to argument, as we saw most notably in 1987, then those finalising the 2008 budget process in chemical companies may need to anticipate more turbulent times ahead.

I mentioned PetroChina in the very first blog entry, when the stock was trading at $155 in New York. It seemed to me to typify the new mood of confidence that I was finding as I travelled in Asia on the 10th anniversary of the Asian financial crisis. Little did I think that just 3 months later, it would be trading at $260.

This meteoric rise in the Chinese stock market has left me feeling more than a little uneasy, as to whether confidence has now turned into pure speculation. And this concern has been amplified by news this week that legendary investor Warren Buffett has sold his entire 11% holding in PetroChina, for a $3.5bn profit. Agreeing that, as usual, he sold ‘a little too soon’, he told Fox Business News yesterday that the sale was due to his concern over valuation.

Buffett clearly feels that the best of the China stock market run is behind us, at least for the moment. It will be interesting to see how much longer the present surge can last, and what the impact will be if (when?) it tumbles back to reality.

And in the meantime, it was also interesting to see that in the same interview Buffett denied that he had ever been interested in buying troubled investment bank, Bear Stearns. He added that he was still steering clear of the housing market and US housing stocks, as ‘prices still didn’t seem low enough’. As Buffett tends to buy and sell early, this is a salutary warning that there may well be more trouble ahead for this critical area of chemicals demand.

The ‘consensus forecast’ for 2008 is very optimistic, as I commented in my post-EPCA note. It says oil will remain at $70/bbl, that debt market problems will be contained, and that petchem margins will remain at 2007 levels. This is unusual, as the consensus is normally a base case scenario, with upside and downside variants.

And since EPCA, oil has already increased to around $90/bbl. Back in early July, when it was still ‘only’ $70/bbl, I noted that it had the potential to approach $100/bbl, and this still seems a real possibility. In these circumstances, it is perhaps no surprise that we are seeing an apparent ‘boom’ in demand, as downstream consumers rush to cover themselves before product prices move higher.

I first saw this effect happen in 1979, when the industry had a record year. It was only in 1980 that we discovered that the apparent ease with which the economy had weathered a rise in the oil price to $30/bbl (around $95/bbl in today’s money), was a mirage. Could the same be happening today? I think it is worth considering very carefully as a possibility.

After all, whilst history never repeats itself, the underlying position in financial markets is clearly deteriorating. Bank of America (the 2nd largest US bank), came out with truly shocking Q3 results on Thursday, whilst on Friday Caterpillar’s CEO Jim Owens said the US was already ‘near to, or even in, a recession’. And new housing starts and US house prices were already very weak, even before the recent credit crunch.

There must surely be a real possibility that this latest upward rush by the oil price will be the catalyst that finally causes the US consumer to cut back on non-essential spending. Equally, the continuing problems in the banking sector may well turn off the tap of consumer, and maybe even corporate, lending.

If I was drawing up budgets for 2008, I would be putting in place contingency plans for just such an outcome, even whilst crossing my fingers that I would not have to use them.

I recently had the opportunity to attend a workshop organised by Pilko & Associates with leading figures from the private equity (PE) industry. It was fascinating to hear their views on how the current credit crunch is affecting M&A activity. The days when some PE players were acclaimed as geniuses simply for loading up a company with debt are clearly gone. There is a growing consensus that we are moving into a tougher climate for deals, which will probably affect M&A activity and chemical company valuations quite significantly:

• PE had lost its cost of capital advantage in M&A, with a maximum of 4/5 times leverage now being available, compared to the 8/9 times that had been common.
• Investors have also become more cautious, wanting ‘simple stories’ to support a deal, and preferring to work with known people who have good track records.
• Deal size has dropped to around $3bn - $4bn, with larger deals only being done by strategic buyers (eg major companies) who can fund via their own cash-flow.
• Valuations are therefore reducing, but PE has not yet reduced its expectations for >20% return. Bolt-on acquisitions will therefore become more common.

I also got their inside view of the US subprime crisis, where caution seemed to be the order of the day. The expectation was that this would rollover into Q4, and that even then we might not be ‘out of the woods’.

There were also a number of specific issues which have recently appeared on the radar:

• H1 saw several major deals completed, and these will take time to be digested.
• PE buyers are more wary of above ground liabilities after the Texas City refinery explosion. Issues such as process safety/maintenance spend/training are now key.
• The ‘mood music’ of management presentations is seen as critical, as whilst governance policies/systems can change quickly, cultures change more slowly.
• There is probably less sharing of HSE/EHS experience going on, due to the more fragmented nature of the industry. This is a negative step, and needs addressing.
• The majors are now imposing their own standards very quickly on new acquisitions, and taking the costs up-front as part of the deal’s overall cost.

Of course, the current problems in financial markets may all blow over in the next 6 months. But it was interesting to hear the response given to a question as to whether it would be better to issue debt now, or wait 6 months. ‘Take the pain now, and pay the extra premium’ was the advice. ‘Risk is currently increasing in financial markets, not reducing’.

The Bank of England correctly predicted in April this year that the risks associated with US subprime lending had increased, that credit risk monitoring was poor, and that markets should be prepared for liquidity to dry up in parts of the financial sector.

It must therefore, as the Financial Times said, ‘have required some restraint not to write “we told you so” at the start of the Bank’s latest report this week on Financial Stability’. This report updates its analysis, and does not provide much comfort about the near-term outlook. It concludes that:

• Lenders will become even more nervous about asset valuations if any further problems emerge in the US subprime and housing markets
• Highly-leveraged companies, including those involved in recent buyouts, could suffer from a tightening in credit availability, as banks have to absorb formerly off-balance sheet loans back onto their books
• Equity markets (in both industrialised and emerging economies) are vulnerable to any downward revision in global growth prospects
• The US$ may also be vulnerable to a downwards correction if recent changes in investor sentiment to US securities persist

The Bank believes that the cause of the recent problems was ‘a long-standing “search for yield” in financial markets – a desire by investors to maintain high returns in a low interest rate environment’. Its view is that ‘a repricing of risk was long anticipated and necessary’.

But it goes on to add that ‘the scale and breadth of the transition have caught market participants and the authorities by surprise’. It also suggests that players have become complacent, and ‘afraid to stand against the tide for fear of losing market share’.

Its warnings echo those made in early summer by the central bankers’ bank, the BIS, which I covered on July 3 in ‘4 risks to the world economy’. And judging by the Bank's tone in this week’s Report, we should remain on our guard in the coming months for signs that further problems are developing in financial markets.

Oil prices last week rose to an all-time, inflation-adjusted, high in New York at over $92/bbl. Meanwhile food and commodity prices have continued their upward march. In China, the rate of consumer price inflation hit a decade-high of 6.5% in August. So why are we still seeing rates of around 2% reported in the USA and Europe?

Part of the answer is that China, like other developing countries is less energy-efficient than the West. Equally, as the world’s leading manufacturer, it is first in line to suffer higher prices for metals (the steel industry is expecting a 50% increase in the iron price next year, on top of 145% increases this year). But freight costs get passed straight on to buyers, and the Baltic Index for dry goods such as iron, coal and grains has risen 135% this year alone.

Yet current official Western inflation figures still appear benign. As I commented back in July, central banks such as the US Fed conveniently focus on ‘core’ inflation, that excludes food and energy costs. Similarly, the Bank of England now focuses on consumer price inflation (CPI) instead of retail prices (RPI). What’s in a name, you might ask? 2.1% is the answer. The new CPI registered just 1.8% in September, but the older and more comprehensive RPI clocked in at 3.9%, and is clearly on an upward trend.

Central banks also use ‘hedonics’ as a way of avoiding the hard decisions to raise interest rates when economies are over-heating. But one can’t eat or drive a mobile phone or a laptop, so although these are more powerful today than earlier models, this may not impress union negotiators when they plan tactics for next year’s wage round.

Thus there is a strong argument that investors may have been lulled into a dangerous sense of complacency. A double whammy may be just around the corner. Not only may ‘official’ inflation rates finally start to rise, just as the housing-dominated economies are slowing sharply. But chemical companies’ earnings may also suffer from margin compression if, as seems very possible, consumers prove less willing to accept the latest round of price increases.

Since posting yesterday, oil prices have moved further ahead, with WTI closing at $93.53.

I have also had an interesting dialogue with Paul Satchell of ING Bank, one of the leading chemical analysts, who has kindly allowed me to summarise his comments. Paul believes that investors have become 'dangerously complacent' about the industry's ability to cope with increases in oil prices, following the success of companies such as BASF at passing-through input cost rises since 2004.

He sees a growing danger that commodity chemical producers may suffer the same fate as specialties companies such as Ciba and Clariant, who 'seem to have suffered a major loss of pricing power'.

What are the key questions that need to be asked when discussing any budget or strategy proposal? I have just found the answer, from a master in the field.

Sir Maurice Hodgson is recognised as one of the greatest ICI Chairmen. Under him, the company became a truly global leader, moving away from its ‘imperial’ heritage. His stepping stone to this job was in 1965, when he became ICI’s first strategic planner, and in this role he developed the concept for the whole chemical industry.

As he describes it, Hodgson decided that there were ‘3 very specific questions’ that the ICI Board needed to address:

• Where are we going if we don’t change?
• Where would we rather be going?
• How do we need to change to get from one to the other?

Unfortunately, this first question, in my experience, is almost never asked these days.

Today's ‘default’ position is that the status quo is assumed to be optimum and viable, unless concrete evidence is produced to the contrary. The beauty of Hodgson’s question is that it turns this assumption on its head.

Its ‘default’ position is that the risk of NOT changing is potentially quite high. This provokes quite a different debate, as it forces a discussion to take place on how the future might be different from the past.

Today would be an excellent time to put Hodgson’s questions to the test. As I wrote on 22 October, the consensus forecast for next year is very optimistic. And so, rather than assuming that 2008 will look much like 2007, it might be very revealing for a Board to have an open debate about where the business might be going if indeed, as many now believe, a US recession is just around the corner.

In turn, this would allow debate on Hodgson’s other two questions to take place whilst there is still time for contingency plans to be prepared. Otherwise, there could be a real risk of the company losing control of its own destiny, if circumstances do turn out to be more difficult than is currently expected.

Back at the end of August, I suggested that we had only reached the end of Phase1 of the credit crunch. I feared that it had the potential to get much worse, and to damage the ‘real economy’ where all of us in the chemical industry live and work.

This was definitely a minority view at the time, especially in financial markets. Earlier in August, I had quoted Chuck Prince, CEO of Citigroup, who expressed the prevailing mood when he said, ‘We are not scared. We are not panicked. We are not rattled. Our team has been through this before.’ We are ’still dancing’.

Yesterday, Prince resigned as CEO, following the announcement that the bank would take a $5.9bn loss on its subprime exposure for Q3. His departure followed that of Stan O’Neal as CEO of Merrill Lynch. This morning, Citi have said they may have incurred a further $11bn loss in the past month. Their shareholders are being left to pick up the bill for a very expensive period of ‘dancing’.

It is now almost certain that the current credit crisis is not going to be a ‘9 day wonder’. The problems in sub-prime apparently go too deep for an easy recovery to be possible. This is a double whammy for the chemical industry, which is already suffering from growing difficulties in passing through higher feedstock costs.

De-leveraging is an ugly phrase, and its impact on the chemical industry could be as bad as it sounds. I suggested back in mid-August that CEOs should be rolling-out ‘strict guidelines about how to manage credit risks with highly leveraged customers’. Similarly, highly-leveraged companies in the chemical sector should be conserving cash by all means possible as we come to year-end.

Christophe de Margerie, the new TOTAL CEO, has burst the bubble of complacency that has surrounded discussion of future oil supply.

The ‘business as usual’ forecasts of both the International Energy Agency and the US government assume that the world will be producing c120m bbls/day by 2030. But de Margerie said he wished to ‘speak clearly, honestly and not just try to please people’ on this topic. In his view, ‘it would be difficult to reach even 100m bbls/day’.

Yet the world is already using 85m bbls/day. And demand has been growing very fast. 5 years ago, it was only 78m bbls/day. This is because of new demand from the emerging economies such as China and India, as well as the Middle East, where oil consumption is subsidised by the government. So higher world prices have little impact on domestic demand in these countries.

de Margerie said the problem was NOT with the amount of oil in the ground. He believes that ‘reserves have never been so big’ as a result of new technology. But he DID highlight the practical problems in the way of reaching 100m bbls/day, saying:

• ‘We (in the oil industry) have been over-optimistic on geology, in terms of how much time it takes to develop reserves’
• The industry has also ‘misunderstood’ the willingness of resource-rich countries to allow production today from their best oil fields. Instead, these countries are often only offering smaller and more difficult fields to foreign investors.
• Political and security problems were also holding back supplies in countries such as Iraq, Nigeria and Venezuela. ‘We know these developments are not underway’.

Only 3 years ago, under the influence of Wall Street, the major western oil companies were still spending more money on share buybacks than on finding new sources of oil and bringing it to market. This lack of investment is about to catch up with us. In de Margerie’s view, ‘100m bbls/day is now an optimistic case’.

His conclusion is that the increasing tightness of supplies will keep oil prices relatively high in the future. This is a very worrying message for the chemical industry, which depends on oil-based feedstocks for most of its products.

1 in every 196 US households was in receipt of a foreclosure filing at the end of September, according to Bloomberg. This is a scary number for anyone who owns a house. And Quarter 4 is likely to be worse. Latest figures from the Realtors Association show September’s existing home sales down 19.1% from a year ago.

US auto markets are also getting worse. I calculate that sales of the Big 3 (GM, Ford, Chrysler) are down 7.8% this year, based on latest sales data. Market conditions have deteriorated markedly since I last reviewed industry performance in early September.

Chrysler are already offering cashbacks and lease cash on most of their 2008 range. They are also taking an axe to inventory, which fell 8% last month versus a year ago. Even so, it still stands at 84 days sales.

Chrysler are bound to be aggressive, as the new owners are Cerberus, the private equity firm. And chemical companies can’t say they weren’t warned. Cerberus have, after all, named themselves after the 3 headed dog who guarded the gates to Hell in Greek myth! (The pic at the top by William Blake gives you the general idea.)

Darryl Jackson, their VP for U.S. Sales justified the cashbacks by referring to ‘growing concerns about the housing slump… and future economic conditions’. And we can see this in the latest reports from the individual companies:

• GM reported a 6% fall in Q3 vehicle sales versus a year ago.
• Ford were down 9.5% in October.
• Chrysler were 9% down.
• Toyota managed a minor 0.5% increase (but noted that October had an extra selling day this year, so in reality their sales were also down on a daily basis)

Any US chemical company making final adjustments to 2008 budgets would be well advised to err on the downside. Domestic US markets could get very difficult next year, if core auto and housing markets don’t start to recover soon.

Our annual European conference, organised with ICIS, always provides an excellent opportunity to gain a snapshot of industry views as we move into a new year. At this week’s event in Antwerp, Belgium, the prevailing mood was uncertainty, for the first time since 2002:

• Oil prices are high, and volatile. This makes it difficult to plan ahead with any confidence.
• Feedstock markets are in a perfect storm. Shell described the major pressures on refiners, which have kept naphtha markets tight, and prices high.
• End-user demand may be weakening. Artenius and Scott Bader see increasing difficulties in passing through higher feedstock prices to end-users.
• Credit worries are increasing. Our financial speakers from ING and Barclays Capital both warned that the sub-prime crisis is far from over.

Petchems have had a great run since 2003. It is not at all clear that this will continue into 2008. Our delegates are probably very wise to be developing contingency plans, in case the next few months turn out to be the start of the long-awaited downturn.

English children have a card game called ‘Beggar my Neighbour’, where the aim is to win all the cards from your opponents. Central bankers seem to be learning its rules, and applying them to currency trading. OPEC’s weekend summit showed it is clearly worried that it will have a losing hand if oil remains priced in US$.

US exports have been booming recently, whilst imports have been falling, as can be seen from the chart below produced by the American Chemistry Council (ACC). In a recent note, the ACC estimated that US chemical exports are up 18% versus last year, whilst imports are down 6.7%. As a result, the US trade deficit in chemicals has fallen from $6.7bn to just $0.6bn through September.

In the background is 2007’s 16% fall in the value of the US$ against a basket of currencies. This is making it much easier for US-based chemical companies to boost exports, and so compensate for the housing/auto-led sales decline in their own domestic market. But the US’s trading partners are now expressing unease.

Last week, Japanese PM Fukuda followed the European Central Bank in complaining about the soaring value of the yen versus the US$. Whilst UK central bank governor Mervyn King explicitly warned that the UK pound would need to fall, in order to close the UK’s £7bn/month trade deficit in goods.

Now OPEC has joined the chorus of dissent. Ignoring a warning from Saudi Arabia that any currency discussion might cause the US$ to ‘collapse’ (a warning that was ‘accidentally’ broadcast to the media!), OPEC members pointed out that in euros, their average netback is actually lower in euros this year than in 2006.

Any move by OPEC to price oil in a basket of currencies, rather than the US$, could cause major feedstock cost increases for the global chemical industry, as well as disrupting US chemical exports.

Fluctuating currency values look set to be another cause of uncertainty about the prospects for 2008.

Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, spent his trip to Singapore yesterday expressing concern over the fall in the US$. ‘“We have never been experiencing such big pressure. We are worried about how to preserve the value of our reserves,’ he said.

In a separate interview, Mr Wen then went further, stating ‘We will increase the flexibility of the renminbi exchange rate and gradually achieve its convertibility on the capital account’.

Clearly Mr Wen is amongst those who have woken up to the rules of ‘Beggar my Neighbour’ that I described yesterday, when commenting on currency markets. It will be worth watching closely to see if, and by how much, the renminbi starts to rise in the next few weeks.

The consensus viewpoint is an easy way of keeping up to speed on a variety of issues outside one’s daily experience. But the signs are that the consensus may be leading to complacency, when it comes to the assumptions being used to finalise 2008 budgets. There are a number of areas where some new thinking is required:

• Oil prices. Many companies are already having to revise up their budget assumptions, now that crude is approaching $100/bbl.
• Housing markets. It was said that US prices would never fall on a national basis. But they have, and other key markets (UK, Spain, France) look weak.
• Inflation. After 10 years of Great Stability, central banks were widely believed to have inflation under control. This looks increasingly unlikely today.
• US $. This was supposed to stabilise or strengthen, but is now declining quite rapidly against the Yen (109 as I write), and the euro (0.67).
• Leverage. This was thought to be ‘a good thing’, forcing managers to ‘make assets sweat’. But it also makes it easy for companies to go bust in a downturn.

The current consensus may still be right, that 2008 will be a relatively good year for the industry. But core areas for chemical demand such as US housing and autos are already looking quite difficult. Financial markets are also growing more nervous. And when things go wrong, the decline is often quite sudden, leaving little time to think.

Time spent now on preparing contingency plans, in case there is a downturn, may well prove a good investment.

A recent Financial Times article commented on the 93% correlation this year between changes in the ¥ / € rate and global stock market movements. It showed that during 2007, whenever the euro has risen against the yen, stocks have also risen, and vice versa. This could be interesting background info for anyone who dabbles in shares.

This analysis also prompted me to have a look at the chart above, showing the yen/dollar rate. It is a good proxy for US chemical exports to Asia. And as you can see, there has really been quite a dramatic shift since July. The dollar peaked in late June at 124 yen, and now only buys 108 yen. That’s a 13% fall in 5 months.

And the rate of fall has been increasing. In mid-October, the dollar bought 118 yen. So it has fallen 8% in 6 weeks. No wonder that Japanese and Chinese premiers are concerned, as I described earlier this week. If this continues, we will soon be approaching the 102 yen level, which has served as the bottom of the dollar’s trading range for over 10 years.

Companies who have been profiting, or suffering, from the dollar’s recent fall will no doubt be paying great attention to its progress over the next few weeks. A fall below 100 yen would take us into uncharted water, and seriously worry other countries, such as those in the Middle East, who currently tie their currency to the dollar.

Its been a while since we had an old-fashioned currency crisis. One might be just around the corner.

Gazprom is becoming a player to watch in petchems.

For decades, observers have speculated that Russia might increase its petchem activity. A recent comment by Gazprom deputy CEO, Valery Golubev, seemed to bring this concept closer to reality. He said that Gazprom aimed to increase its ethylene production by 350% to 7.66 million tonnes (MT) by 2015. He also said Gazprom plastics production would rise from 400 KT to 1.7 MT in the same period.

Now Gazprom has announced a further initiative, this time with Dow. As Nigel Davis and Sergei Blagov reported on ICIS news, Gazprom and its petchem arm, Sibur, will study with Dow the potential for joint gas processing projects near the Valanzhinsk gas deposits in Russia's Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Region, as well as a possible joint venture based on expanding Dow's petrochemical production units in Germany.

This agreement builds on an earlier MOU signed last year. And the concept seems well in line with Dow’s developing asset-light strategy for commodity businesses. Earlier this year, Dow’s CEO Andrew Liveris said that Dow could cooperate with Gazprom on the building of bulk chemical production facilities, in return for the sale of feedstock from it at a lower price. Liveris added that Dow is ‘a very advanced provider of technology. Gazprom would be able to achieve a great deal of synergy from it’.

BASF have also been talking about JV’s with Gazprom, and it is probably no coincidence that Gazprom chose the same day to announce the formation of a new JV with BASF, Gazprom YRGM Trading, which will trade gas from the jointly owned Yuzhno-Russkoye field. Earlier this year, of course, BASF’s own Solvin JV with Solvay announced a Sibur JV to build Russia’s first world-scale fully integrated vinyls plant in Kstovo in 2010.

Gazprom has been indicating since 2004 that it was interested in selling a 50.6% stake in Sibur. Dow and BASF were both said by Gazprom’s former deputy CEO, Alexander Ryazanov, to have made informal offers. Today’s announcements probably also bring this intriguing process one step nearer to realisation.

The US Congress is currently close to finalising a Bill that would aim to tackle climate change. This follows the EU model by establishing a carbon price via a cap-and-trade system, and is very welcome news.

However, there is a sting in the tail, as currently drafted. For it also calls for a border tax on carbon-intensive goods. Chemicals would inevitably be a prime target for such a tax, and ‘The Economist’ rightly devotes an editorial to attacking this concept.

Proponents of the border tax argue that it would encourage other countries to reduce their carbon footprint. It would also stop American producers being disadvantaged by the higher costs imposed by the new higher US standard. But its costs could be huge.

As ‘The Economist’ comments, not only would a ‘massive bureaucracy be needed to certify the carbon content of different goods imported from different factories in different countries.’ But the indirect cost could be even higher, as ‘such a tax would be a dangerous weapon in the hands of America’s growing gang of protectionists’.

‘The Economist’ is not prone to exaggeration. It says that if these measures are passed, America risks starting ‘a global trade war’. Chemical industry executives need urgently to get themselves up to speed on this issue. And the trade associations need to monitor developments very carefully.

Its 2 months since I was last in Asia. It is clear that earlier optimism about the region’s resilience in the face of a possible US recession in 2008 has begun to disappear.

Typical is the comment by Kanit Saengsubhan of the Thai Fiscal Policy Institute. He sees Thai growth in 2008 falling below earlier 5% government projections ‘if the US sub-prime mortgage crisis deteriorates further’. And he voiced uncertainty over just how severely Thailand might be hit. ‘In a moderate case, economic growth in the next year could stand at 4.5%, he commented. ‘If the situation becomes more severe, chances are that growth will be less than 4.5%.’

Asian chemical demand is critically dependent on the West. The Asian Wall Street Journal pointed out on Friday that ‘Chinese “exports” often aren’t very “Chinese” at all. The mainland is still largely an assembly point for other countries’ parts’. Thus the current boom in Asian chemical demand is underpinned by an expected 30% increase in this year’s EU-China trade deficit to $253bn (€170bn), and a further rise in the US-China deficit above last year’s $232bn.

As I wrote post-EPCA, we may well be about to discover that ‘when America catches a cold, the rest of the world sneezes’.

Are we seeing just a dip in economic growth? Or are we at the start of a downturn that may run for months, or even years? The answer to this question lies in the US, which still accounts for 25% of global GDP, and where US consumer spending is 70% of US GDP.

Optimists maintain that central bankers have the power to stimulate the economy via interest rate cuts. And certainly, as we saw again last week, the merest hint of further US reductions is enough to send stocks soaring worldwide.

But from a chemical industry viewpoint, the answer is not so simple. Kevin Swift’s excellent weekly report for the American Chemistry Council (ACC), gives a mixed picture. November’s US railcar loadings remained strong, as export activity continued to compensate for weakness in the housing and auto sectors.

But as the chart shows, global chemical industry production growth (ex-pharma) has slowed significantly since the summer in all regions. And the ACC notes that US leading indicators are now negative, and at a level usually associated with recession.

US housing data is very worrying from a chemical industry viewpoint. Each US housing start generates an average $16k of chemical demand, according to ACC calculations. And the massive fall in building permits does not bode well for H1 demand next year

November’s figures for new and existing US home sales are just awful, compared to 2006:

• New home sales are down 24%; median prices down 13%; housing starts down 16%; building permits down 25%. Inventory is 8.5 months sales.
• Existing home sales are down 21%, median prices down 5%. Inventory is 10.8 months sales.

A further worrying sign is that in the wider economy, US inventories are increasing rapidly, adding a full 1% to US GDP growth in Q3. This is perhaps not surprising, given the recent rapid rise in oil prices. Crude was only $71/bbl in early July, when I first suggested it could reach $100/bbl, and it would not be surprising if chemical/polymer buyers have been building even more stock in recent weeks as prices rose.

The optimists may still be right, and central bankers may be able to wave the magic wand that restores us to a growth path. But with US housing/auto sales so critical for the global economy as well as for chemical demand, and with feedstocks remaining tight, it is hard to imagine that the chemical industry can now avoid a serious downturn.

There’s a very interesting article in Barrons (the premier US investment magazine) today. It compares current efforts by Treasury Secretary Paulson in trying to cap US mortgage rates with President Nixon’s ill-fated introduction of a US wage/prices freeze in 1971.

Barrons points out that non-US buyers are already being hit by major write-downs in the value of their US subprime holdings, and adds that ‘now, the interest may be less than promised’.

It is concerned that this weakening of creditors’ rights will discourage global investors from sending their savings to the USA. And it wonders ‘what impact will that have on the current credit crisis? On the dollar? And the status of the US as financial capital of the world?’

US housing conditions are bad enough already. If Barrons is right, the proposed ‘cure’ may end up by making the situation worse, not better. This would not be good news for chemical sales into this important market.

The UK has a proverb about how stable doors only get shut after the horse has run away. We can see this happening in the UK housing market.

The main regulator (the FSA) failed to spot the Northern Rock problem before it led to the UK’s first bank run in 140 years. Only now has it woken up, telling mortgage lenders yesterday to expect ‘market conditions to remain very difficult for a sustained period’.

It also warned that 1.4m UK borrowers face higher interest charges next year ‘which may prove too much for many of them to afford’. In other words, only now has the FSA realised that the US subprime disaster may be just about to hit the UK market, where house prices are even higher as a multiple of earnings. Apparently, they are already having to pay ‘weekly visits’ to some lenders where ‘liquidity levels’ seem too low.

The only problem with this warning is that it comes far too late. The time to stop the unsafe lending practices was when they started. Already the main UK lender (Halifax) has announced a 1.1% fall in UK house prices last month. This makes 3 months in a row that prices have fallen – and one has to go back to 1995 (when the UK was emerging from the last housing crash) for the last time this happened.

The European chemical industry will be badly hit if the UK follows the US housing decline. UK housing has been a major source of demand. And indirect demand will also decline, as UK homeowners will no longer be able to borrow against the rising value of their homes, in order to purchase autos and other consumer goods.

The risk of a global downturn is clearly increasing, as the credit crunch intensifies.

Central banks seem to have their work cut out if they are to restore normality to global credit markets. The famed head of Legg Mason, Chip Mason, who manages over $100 billion of assets, and is one of the world’s largest money managers, said yesterday that ‘credit markets are in the worst state he has seen them in his 47 years in the business’. ‘I have not seen anything like this’, added Mr Mason.

As I discussed back in August, when the current crisis began, companies with high leverage are obviously at great risk if current credit markets conditions continue. By now, many Finance Directors will have already completed their own in-depth assessments of credit risks. Sales people should therefore not be surprised if ‘cash before delivery’ soon becomes the norm for some companies. This may seem a harsh requirement, and may lose some sales in the short-term, but it is far better than standing in line for repayment after the worst has happened.

There is some interesting material on the OPEC website, following this week's Summit, which clarifies their current strategy. The key points are:

• OPEC is currently targeting inventories, not prices. Their policy is to keep OECD crude stocks within the 5 year average. OPEC says its previous production cutbacks ‘minimised the excessive overhangs that existed at the beginning of the year'. Saudi Oil Minister, Ali Naimi, added that ‘inventories (are now) at a healthy level within the 5 year average’.
• In keeping with this approach, OPEC made no comment on current prices. Instead, it focused on the issue of volatility, blaming this on ‘fear of future shortages’, ‘increasing speculation in the futures market’, ‘continuing geopolitical tensions in some oil-producing regions’ and ‘downstream bottlenecks’. This is quite different from September's meeting, when they tried to talk prices down.
• Naimi reiterated OPEC’s commitment to ‘stability and reliability of supply in oil markets’. But he also raised a warning flag over the negative impact of any Western initiatives to move away from fossil fuels, commenting that OPEC’s investment in future production increases will be ‘assuming in good faith that the demand will be there’.

OPEC, in public at least, thesefore seems much more relaxed about the impact of today’s high prices on economic growth than it was in September. Then, the IEA had suggested that OPEC was targeting a minimum $70/bbl price, compared to today’s level near $90/bbl. Or maybe, with a mild winter forecast for the US as a result of the La Nina effect, they are just hedging their bets until they next meet in February.

The major investment banks have changed their minds about the potential for Asia to ‘decouple’ from any credit-crunch induced downturn in the West.

Originally, they had believed that domestic demand in China and elsewhere would enable the Asian economy to sail ahead, no matter what happened elsewhere. I was a bit sceptical of this hypothesis, after my recent visit to the region. And now Bloomberg reports that both Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have changed their minds.

Typical of the new realism is the comment from Morgan Stanley’s Chairman in Asia, Stephen Roach that ‘decoupling is a good story, but it's not going to work going forward’. He sees the region’s economy being badly affected ‘as the US slowdown goes from housing to consumption’. Whilst Goldman also now believe that ‘what began as a US-specific shock is morphing into a global shock’.

China's global manufacturing lead is focused on housing-related products such as refrigerators, microwaves and DVDs, as well as textiles and related products. These are also all areas of strong demand for chemicals/polymers.

And as I noted recently in ‘A dip or a downturn?’, it looks as though the pace of Asian growth is already slackening, as a result of the downturn is western housing markets. 2008 could well be a difficult year in Asia, as elsewhere.

A reader has kindly sent me a YouTube link to a recent British television sketch featuring two masters of satire, John Bird and John Fortune. It takes the form of a mock-interview, with Bird playing the all-wise investment banker, and explaining to Fortune how subprime happened, and what a SIV might be. Not only is it very funny, but also (as always with their work), well researched. It lasts around 9 minutes.

CFOs are paid to worry, but their worries seem to be increasing quite rapidly, according to the results of the quarterly CFO survey by Duke University/The Economist. This showed:

• Record pessimism about the US economy, with US CFOs worrying about ‘weak consumer demand, high fuel costs, rising labor costs and credit markets’.
• European CFOs are ‘dramatically more pessimistic’, and expect employment to fall 0.6%
• Asian CFOs are still optimistic about growth, but almost all CFO’s with Western multinationals said they were being told to increase revenue growth to compensate for slower Western growth.
• A third of Asian CFOs see Chinese growth as likely to slow, whilst 61% of Chinese CFOs expect a US recession to hurt their firms.

Credit market worries are particularly painful for US CFOs, with around half saying that credit has become less available, and that they have experienced an increase in the cost of credit. A third of European CFOs have seen the same impact. US CFOs also noted an increase in ‘hardship withdrawals’ by employees from their 401K savings account, as a result of a need to make mortgage payments or avoid personal bankruptcy.

News that UBS, the major investment bank, has had to follow Citigroup in raising new capital in a hurry, will have added to the CFO concerns I describe below. Massive subprime losses have forced both banks to raise a combined $24.5bn in the past fortnight. Both had previously said that their losses would only be modest.

According to the Financial Times, ‘strong forces are pushing up banks’ demand for capital’. It suggests they are no longer being able to ‘sit on’ bad debts, and that as a result, ‘pressure on bank capital is starting earlier than in previous downturns’. As a result, it believes that Citi and UBS rushed ‘to get in first’, before market conditions become more difficult next year.

Tonight the Fed will have another attempt at waving a magic wand to make these mounting worries go away. To judge by the Duke University survey, chemical industry CFOs, and their professional colleagues, are obviously not over-impressed with the success record so far.

In recent days, 3 respected commentators on oil markets have raised concerns about the near and medium-term prospects for oil supplies:

• Goldman Sachs has raised their 2008 WTI price forecast to $95/bbl from $85/bbl. This is driven by their expectation that cost inflation, plus continuing technological and political uncertainty, will ‘increase the price required to motivate capacity investment’. They point out that there has recently been a ‘large rise in long-dated prices to the $80-85/bbl range’.
• CIBC have pointed out that ‘soaring rates of consumption’ in Russia, Mexico and the OPEC countries will reduce their exports by 3.5mb/day by 2010. This equates to 3% of world demand. High oil prices are stimulating rapid growth in car ownership in many of these countries, whilst subsidised gasoline prices make driving cheap.
• The International Energy Agency (IEA) said yesterday that ‘we are on the eve of a new world order’ in energy, where China and India ‘now drive global energy demand’. The IEA chief economist, Faith Birol, projects 35mb/day of new demand by 2015, but worried that only 25 mb/day is currently being planned. Equally, the IEA says major energy consumers, including the USA, are doing very little to restrain demand growth.

My reading of all this is that dialogue between oil producers and consumers is starting to break down. As I noted after the OPEC meeting, even the Saudis are questioning whether they should invest the billions of dollars needed to bring major new fields on stream.

The price and availability of oil is absolutely critical to the chemical industry. Growing uncertainty around these key issues is already leading to increased price volatility, which in turn will reduce margins and profitability.

It is now almost 6 months since I started writing this blog. And I thought you might like some feedback on how it is developing.

As you can see from the green-shading on the map, it is now read in almost all of the major chemical producing/consuming areas. A high proportion of readers bookmark the site, and return to it regularly. You are also spending more time on the site, as the amount of content builds.

Certainly, there has been no shortage of issues to cover:

• Oil prices. The blog was amongst the first to suggest, on July 5, that crude prices might reach $100/bbl over the winter. At that time, the price was $71/bbl, and most forecasters were expecting a decline. The recent peak was $99.26/bbl, and the winter is not yet over.
• Credit crunch. The blog covered this from the start, just as the US subprime crisis began. And many people have kindly commented that they first became aware of its implications for the chemical industry via the blog’s commentary.
• Chemical markets have been covered extensively, with a focus on key areas such as housing and autos. These are clearly leading indicators for chemical demand, and the blog has been able to highlight potential problems before they became widely recognised.
• Regional developments. Chemicals is a global industry, and the blog has kept readers up to date on developments in all the major areas – Asia, the Americas, Europe and the Middle East.

Re-reading the blog’s Mission statement (at the top of the main page), it therefore seems to be fulfilling its role of ‘sharing ideas that may shape the chemical industry over the next 12-18 months’. We have certainly ‘looked behind the headlines’, and I have tried to provide as many links as possible to original source material elsewhere on the web.

We have also had our moments of ‘fun’ - commenting on the hedge fund trader who ‘forgot’ he owned a £80k Maserati, and on the Brazilian super-model who sparked a mini-currency crisis by revealing she preferred to be paid in euros, not dollar.

One recent change is that I am often now writing shorter summaries of issues as they develop. With 82 postings already on the site, readers can then link to more detailed background, as required. Hopefully, this makes it quicker for you to find the topics of most interest.

Thank you very much for your support and comments over the past 6 months. I’m looking forward to covering whatever 2008 may bring.

Dow has been unique amongst the world’s largest petchem companies in not being integrated upstream into oil and refining. This position will change dramatically at the end of 2008, when its newly-announced JV with the PIC subsidiary of Kuwait Petroleum opens for business.

Not only will Dow then integrate its ethylene/PE business, but it will be do so with a non-western oil company. As Dow’s CEO, Andrew Liveris, describes it, ‘the day of the NOC (National Oil Company) dominance has arrived’. The new JV will be responsible for pursuing ethylene/PE projects on its own, and will be the prime focus for Dow's Asian ambitions. Some/all of the existing PE-based JVs may also be linked to it in the future. Liveris explained that the aim is ‘to bring each one of those relationships to the table in due course’.

This deal continues Dow’s strategy of JVing its Basics business, whilst growing its technology-led performance businesses. In Basics, the aim is to anchor Dow’s technology and market knowledge with locally sourced advantaged feedstocks. Whilst the Performance businesses focus on 4 key areas – Human health, Energy, Infrastructure & Transportation, Electronics & Communication.

The deal creates a $19.1bn global JV that (if combined in due course with the existing Equate, MEGlobal and Equipolymers JVs) will create the world’s No1 polyolefins company. It will focus on plastics (PE/PP/PC/PET), and will also create the world’s largest EO/EG & derivatives company. It will have supply agreements with 3 of Dow’s crackers at Fort Saskatchewan (Canada), Bahia Blanca (Argentina), Tarragona (Spain). If combined with the existing JVs, it would have $14bn in revenue, and be largely focused on ethylene, with some aromatics involvement via polycarbonate. Dow’s other US/European crackers will remain wholly-owned.

The partners have so far concluded a non-binding MOU. Closure of the deal is expected at the end of 2008, at which point PIC will pay $9.5bn for its share of the businesses that Dow is contributing. This will provide Dow with the flexibility to move forward on the next stage of its push into a more market-facing portfolio.

Dow now plans a ‘more aggressive approach to M&A’. It will certainly have the flexibility to do this, having successfully reduced its ‘debt to total capital ratio’ in recent years from over 50% to today’s low 30%. But any prospective acquisitions will need to be aligned with the market-facing businesses, and to also meet Dow’s DCF, IRR financial metrics, as well as having a short payback period, and adding more value to earnings than a simple share buyback.

For Dow, the deal aims to preserve integration whilst mitigating cyclicality via JVs. Transfer pricing downstream will continue as today, as if they were Dow businesses. And Dow will aim to put the income from the deal ‘to better use’ in new business development. Whilst for PIC, the deal will provide 50% of the businesses that Dow is contributing, and the basis to contribute Kuwait feedstocks (eg crude/gas) to future integrated refinery/petchem projects in China and elsewhere.

Dow’s other potential JVs with Saudi Aramco, Egypt, Libya, Oman and Gazprom are all outside the new JV ‘for the moment’. And its multi-product JVs such as with Saudi Aramco will likely remain separate. Equally, the existing PS JV with CPChem will remain separate, as Dow do not see the PS/ABS area as capable of much growth, by comparison with the other polymers. Dow did however hint that they do have further plans around their existing VCM business with Shintech, but did not elaborate further.

Yesterday the European Central Bank opened its doors and lent €349bn to 390 banks seeking to shore up their reserves position for year-end. Will this help solve the credit crunch? Writing today in the Financial Times, their excellent banking editor (Gillian Tett) is doubtful. She worries that ‘the banks know something nasty that we don’t’, and that this is causing them to hoard ‘cash to an extraordinary degree’.

What does this mean for the chemical industry? Firstly, of course, it will add to CFO concerns about their ability to obtain reasonably priced loans, as I discussed last week. There are already reports of major M&A deals in the chemical sector being unable to raise long-term debt due to current market conditions.

Secondly, it seems to add to the uncertainty over the outlook for 2008. As one banker told me recently, the worry about Q1 is that auditors will not only find further problems in the lending books of some banks, but also find holes in the balance sheets of some companies, who had put subprime investments (knowingly, or unknowingly) into their reserves.

Helpfully, Gillian Tett has separately summarised the 3 major scenarios that describe how the current crisis might play out next year:

Consensus. The US narrowly escapes recession. US housing and banking markets stabilise in Q1, and there is little spillover into the rest of the economy, although auto sales growth and jobs growth decline. Emerging markets continue to boom, helping to balance slower Western growth.
Muddle through. The credit crunch slows global growth. Western economies come under pressure, and high levels of debt reduce corporate and individual flexibility. The US$ remains under pressure, as investors reallocate portfolios to other currencies.
Downturn. Today’s credit worries spread. Banks severely restrict lending as their current business model of securitising loans to 3rd parties stops working. They also suffer losses in other consumer areas (eg credit cards). A US recession leads to a second wave of financial turmoil, as highly indebted companies go bust.

What worries me about the consensus view, as with the consensus on oil prices that I discussed in October in ‘Budgeting for a downturn’, is that it is not a true base case. It is easily the most optimistic scenario. The other outcomes are both downside cases in terms of the 2008 outlook for the ‘real world’ in which the chemical industry operates.

The need for chemical companies to develop robust contingency plans, in case the consensus is wrong, is looking ever stronger.

Bloomberg reports today that China’s yuan has now risen 12% against the US$, since the dollar peg was scrapped in July 2005. And the rise is accelerating, with the currency up 6% so far this year.

Significantly, China’s Commerce Minister Chen Deming said that the yuan’s rise ‘fits China’s economic needs’. A strong exchange rate will help to keep China’s inflation in check. This is now at 6.9%, an 11 year high. But it is a mixed blessing for Asian chemical companies, as although they (and other regional exporters) will obtain higher netbacks for their exports to China, they may also find themselves having to compete harder against domestic suppliers.

The dollar has rallied a bit in December to around 113 yen. US corporate buying traditionally supports the dollar in December, as companies finalise their accounts for year-end. But this is still a 9% fall versus its June high of 124 yen. As I noted last month, there is still a worrying potential for a dollar fall below 100 yen in the New Year, once these seasonal influences are out of the way.

Housing, as we know, is an absolutely key market for the chemical industry, both directly and indirectly. Directly, each new house accounts for $16k of chemical demand, whilst indirectly, years of rising western house prices has allowed consumers to cash out their gains to spend on Asian imports.

Now this virtuous circle has turned with a vengeance. And the subprime mortgage crisis is turning into a game of very big numbers. Earlier this week, the European Central Bank handed over €349bn, not too many questions asked, to 390 banks. It was also revealed that the Bank of England was now liable for around £50bn in respect of the continuing Northern Rock debacle.

Now the Financial Times reveals that the US is ahead of them both, handing out $746bn in Q3, on an annualised basis. Apparently the reason the US hasn’t (yet?) suffered a major bank run is that an obscure body called the Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) system has stepped in to replace the lack of liquidity in mortgage-backed loans.

The sums lent by now may be even higher, because like all government bodies, data releases tend to be delayed. But we do know it raised $210bn in November alone, presumably to fund loan commitments already made, on top of the Q3 lending. Its top 3 borrowers have been Citigroup. Countrywide and Washington Mutual – and one wonders what would have happened to their balance sheets without this infusion of federal money?

The Chairman of the FHLB, Ronald Rosenfeld, summed up the dilemma facing central banks and governments across the Western world. Asked by the Financial Times what would happen to the FHLB portfolios if house prices fell by 20 or 30 per cent, he replied: "I do not know the answer, but I can tell you I do not want to hear the news’.

But, he added, if the loans weren’t being made, and ‘if house prices were to depreciate 20% to 30%, you would simply have enormous problems in this country.’

Right at the start of the crisis on 2 August, I noted that Jochen Sanio, head of Germany’s financial regulator, had warned that we were facing ‘the worst banking crisis since 1931’. Since then, public statements from the world’s central bankers have remained calm. But actions speak louder than words. And it is clear from their actions that they too must share Herr Sanio’s fears.

Its always interesting to see the news stories that are slipped out just before major public holidays, when media attention is likely to be low.

Only ICIS news seemed to spot the announcement by Moody’s that they were placing SABIC Innovative Plastics (the former GE Plastics business) on watch for a potential ratings downgrade. Yet this is a story with potentially major implications for the chemical industry.

SABIC bought the GE business in July, when it was already well known to be suffering from high feedstock costs and increasingly difficult market conditions. But Moody’s felt no qualms then about issuing a provisional Ba2 rating for the debt. Yet on 21 December, Moody’s said that Q3 results might lead to a downgrade.

The key to the story is Moody’s sudden concern over the fact that SABIC used ‘a highly leveraged funding structure', which it now believes could ‘put more pressure’ on the business. In July, this structure was the norm for chemical M&A deals. But as I noted in October, the subsequent credit crisis has caused lenders to become more risk-averse.

Nobody, least of all Moody’s, is really questioning SABIC's support for its new Innovative Plastics business. But the ratings agencies, including Moody’s, were very slow to recognise the developing problems in the banking world as a result of the subprime disaster.

By rushing out news of a possible downgrade on this debt, Moody’s are making it easier for themselves to downgrade more debt issued by less well-placed companies during 2008. They can point to the SABIC example as ‘justification’ for a tougher line. Existing borrowers should therefore prepare for similar actions, as well as higher interest payments, during 2008.

For the chemical industry, much depends on whether the US economy goes into recession during 2008. The signs are not encouraging, with even former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan believing it is a 50:50 chance.

So how would any recession impact the current credit crisis? Writing in the Financial Times their banking editor, Gillian Tett, provides one answer. She has an excellent track record, as I have noted before, and in her forecast for 2008 she points out that current $100bn losses in the banking system could easily grow by a further $200bn if the housing slowdown leads to credit card and commercial property defaults. She then adds:

‘The nightmare scenario, however, is one in which risky companies start to default on their loans. Thankfully, there is no sign of this occurring yet. But if the US economy goes into recession, the chance of corporate defaults will rise - which could produce more losses for banks, and thus a second chapter in the credit crunch story.’

Finance Directors will also have taken note of Chrysler CEO Nardelli's comments recently to employees that the company is 'operationally bankrupt' and likely to have to sell assets quickly to raise funds. A policy of close monitoring of customers' financial solvency would seem to be a sensible precaution, gicen the uncertainties around.

I noted in late November that China’s policy towards its currency might be changing.

Now we have evidence of this change, with a rather spectacular 0.9% rise in its value versus the US$ last week. This was the largest weekly gain since it was de-pegged against the $ in July 2005. And it seemed to result from a desire by the Chinese authorities to boost the currency in order to help get inflation back under control.

If China is really changing course in terms of the renminbi's value, then we can certainly expect to be living 'in interesting times', as the Chinese saying goes, in the next few months.

Oil prices touched $100/bbl today, a new record in nominal and inflation-adjusted terms. At the same time, the US Institute of Supply Management (ISM) index signalled that the manufacturing sector ‘failed to grow in December’, with ‘industries close to the housing market struggling more than others’. All the ISM’s main indicators were negative, with inventories also reported to be moving in the ‘too high’ direction.

It is difficult to underestimate the psychological importance of oil reaching the $100/bbl level. I first identified the potential for this to happen 6 months ago on 5 July (just as this blog began), when I suggested $100/bbl could be reached ‘early next year’. But at the time, this was a distinctly minority view. The price then was only $71/bbl, and many expected it to retreat to the $50/bbl level seen at the start of 2007.

I noted on 14 July, as oil rose to $79/bbl, that leading retailers Wal-Mart and Tesco were already reporting that consumers had become more conscious of value-for-money issues. I commented that CEO’s needed to develop ‘a major cost-leadership programme’ for September rollout, in order to respond to this twin challenge of higher feedstock costs and increasing consumer price resistance.

By August, I had also become concerned that the combination of the subprime disaster and high oil prices could provide ‘a distinctly unhealthy cocktail’ for the global economy. With OPEC proposing only a small increase in oil supplies as we came into the northern winter, plus ‘weakening US demand and credit markets’, I worried that chemical company profits could well be hit.

I repeated this concern in mid-September, when prices were still at $79/bbl, and concluded that ‘higher oil prices have always slowed the world economy in the past. Their impact may have been deferred this time, but it is hard to believe that it has been avoided’.

My EPCA posting confirmed this concern. I found myself worrying that the consensus forecast was too complacent, expecting $70/bbl crude and reasonable chemical demand and margins for 2008. Instead, I suggested that the meeting ‘will mark a turning point in the petchem cycle’.

By mid-October, I was pointing out that crude had risen to $90/bbl, and worried that ‘this latest upward rush by the oil price will be the catalyst that finally causes the US consumer to cut back on non-essential spending’. I suggested that companies should develop contingency plans for a 2008 downturn, even whilst hoping these would not be needed.

By the end of October, crude had reached an all-time high in inflation adjusted terms of over $92/bbl. And I questioned the reliability of Western inflation figures that sought to portray inflation at ‘only’ 2%, despite massive increases in the prices of food and energy. I worried that we would see ‘margin compression’ in the industry, as central banks belatedly woke up to the risk that inflation might become a real problem again.

Paul Satchell, chemicals analyst at ING shared my concerns, believing that investors had become ‘dangerously complacent about the industry’s ability to cope with increases in oil prices’. Whilst TOTAL’s CEO added to my worries in early November when I reported his view that ‘increasing tightness of supplies will keep oil prices relatively high in the future’.

By December, I noted that ‘the dialogue between oil producers and consumers is starting to break down’. I suggested that ‘the price and availability of oil is absolutely critical to the chemical industry. Growing uncertainty around these key issues is already leading to increased price volatility, which in turn will reduce margins and profitability’.

During December, we had a significant fall in the price to below $90/bbl. But the experience of previous oil price surges in 1973-4 and 1979-80 was that when the rally finally ended, prices stabilised at the new, higher, level. They did not collapse. It would therefore be a triumph of hope over experience to expect the 2007-8 surge to be different. And, of course, the worst of the northern winter is possibly still to come.

S&P have quickly followed Moody’s in putting SABIC Innovative Plastics’ debt on creditwatch for a downgrade. As I commented with the Moody’s downgrade, this is not really to do with a newly discovered decline in the polycarbonate market. S&P have very competent chemical analysts, and must have been aware in August (when the original grade was announced), that Q3 was turning out to be a tough quarter, and that future profits were likely to slow.

Again, ICIS news have done a good job uncovering this story during the quiet holiday period. Most revealing is the comment from S&P analyst, Tobias Mack that ‘We expect that SABIC will likely have to offer some parental support in 2008 to protect its subsidiary SABIC Innovative Plastics from a distress scenario’.

SABIC is one of the strongest chemical companies around. In making this demand, S&P are clearly preparing the ground to put major pressure on less well-supported companies with high leverage. They are also signalling that life will be quite difficult for those still trying to finance deals completed towards the end of 2007.

My conversations over the holiday period suggested that lenders’ lawyers are already busy examining the fine print of loan agreements, even those supposedly ‘cov-lite’ with few covenants to enforce performance. Finance directors don’t want to be caught unaware, if a major downgrade is likely. They need to ensure their sales and purchasing teams are monitoring credit conditions at their customers and suppliers very closely.

A reader has kindly sent me an interesting analysis from Richard Bernstein, Chief Investment Strategist at Merrill Lynch (ML)*. He argues that ‘the Fed can lower interest rates quite a lot, but they will likely have minimal impact on the economy unless credit creation grows’.

Bernstein says their research indicates that US credit availability is now very tight. This leads him to conclude that ‘the Fed’s policies might be extremely impotent’ and akin to ‘pushing on air’. He adds that ‘lower interest rates do not always spur credit growth’, and points to the example of Japan for the past 15 years.

I noted back on 9 September that the then IMF head. Rodrigo Rato, had also warned that reducing interest rates might make the situation worse, not better. Rato argued that the real problem was that ‘systemically important banks may face constraints in extending credit.’ Four months later, it seems even more likely that the current lending crisis is about concerns over return of capital, not return on capital.

This analysis had led me to question whether ‘cutting rates (would) encourage lenders to lend more?’ I concluded that the answer was ‘Probably not. It might well make them more reluctant, by reducing their potential reward. It might also weaken the dollar, as overseas investors looked for higher returns elsewhere’.

Unfortunately, developments over the past 4 months seem to suggest that my concerns were correct. Key US chemical markets such as housing and autos have got worse, not better, whilst the US$ has weakened.

Another round of US rate cuts is widely expected this month. Although the Fed is undoubtedly well intentioned, ML’s research suggests that their actions may, in this crisis, be doing more harm than good.

(* I can’t link to this report, but will be happy to send a copy to any interested reader)

US autos are one of the major uses for chemicals. The ACC recently calculated that each auto contains $2441 worth of chemistry, with a wide range of companies supplying products such as antifreeze, sealants, coatings and plastics. In 2006, chemical sales to the industry were worth $32.6bn.

A downturn in auto sales is therefore not good news. As I commented in November, when reviewing Q3 sales, ‘domestic US markets could get very difficult next year, if core auto and housing markets don’t start to recover soon’.

Unfortunately, Ford CEO Mulally’s comments last night suggests that they are not optimistic about 2008 prospects. ‘Clearly, most of the parameters of our economy are associated with a real slowdown’, said Mulally. ‘Everything has deteriorated more than we expected’.

We can also see this in the newly-released sales figures for 2007. Sales by the big 4 (GM, Toyota, Chrysler, Ford) were down 5% overall versus 2006 at 11.1m, with only Toyota showing a sales increase.

• GM were down 6% in the year, with 3.9m sales
• Toyota took the No 2 spot for the first time, with a 2.7% increase to 2.6m sales
• Ford took No 3 spot for the first time since 1905, after a 12% decline to 2.57m sales
• Chrysler, now under Cerberus management, and offering major cashbacks to clear inventory, was down 3% with 2.1m sales

The only positive was that inventories do seem to have been cleared, with Chrysler reporting the lowest level going into January for 13 years. But even this good news came at a cost for the chemical industry, as it was only due to a 21% production cut in December.

Reaction to $100 oil has been swift. Yesterday, the Chinese State Council decided to freeze the prices of oil products, natural gas and electricity, as well as public transportation. A measure of the government’s concern is that the meeting to approve the freeze was attended by premier Wen Jiabao.

Chinese inflation is now at 6.9% and the Council noted that ‘China faces relatively large pressures of further price increases (as) prices of crude oil, grains and other primary products are still rising on the international market’.

So as expected, $100 oil prices are already having an impact on psychology. The Chinese government has been most aggressive in searching for new sources of oil imports. But even they are now starting to worry about the implications of unlimited consumption of oil and oil-based products.

Earlier this week, the State Council also announced a decision to ban ultra-thin plastic bags, and to charge customers for thicker plastic bags. China uses around 3bn plastic bags a year, which requires 37m bbls of crude per year. But even if the ban is totally successful, it will save less than two days of total oil consumption.

If major energy importers such as China have decided to prioritise oil use, and have started by banning plastic bags, what other petchem products will be next affected? And if other countries follow this lead, what will be the impact on petchem demand generally?

Financial investors are already quite disruptive in crude oil markets. And their influence is set to grow this year. That’s the message from surveys by Barclays Global Investors and JP Morgan. $120bn is now invested in commodities as a class, with oil a major target. Even your own pension fund may be about to invest, or to increase its exposure, after the stellar returns posted in 2007.

As a result, crude oil prices are becoming more volatile. Over the past month, they have been over $100/bbl on several occasions. Yet they were below $90/bbl on 18 December, and are currently back around $93/bbl. This is a major issue for petchems, making pricing and margins most uncertain.

Nothing has changed since mid-December in the ‘real world’ of oil supply/demand to justify this recent volatility. The mild weather forecast for the critical NE USA area seems to have been accurate. There have been no new geo-political tensions.

The cause is simply the behaviour of financial players. As I noted back in July, these do not set underlying trends. Rather, they jump on them after they have developed. The ‘weight of money’ then exaggerates any minor changes in either direction.

Worryingly for petchems, this influence seems likely to grow in 2008. The US pension fund, Calpers, is poised to invest $13bn (5% of its $250bn portfolio). It sees oil markets as a good ‘hedge’ against inflation and slowing stock markets. Calpers adds that ‘we believe energy will offer investors opportunities in coming years’.

In Europe, JP Morgan found that 31% of major investors were planning to invest in commodities this year. Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and Austria were particularly keen, with only France having zero interest. Europe is following the US pattern, with the largest Dutch pension fund ABP increasing its investment to 3% of its portfolio, matching Hermes (the UK’s largest fund).

There is little point in petchem producers or consumers trying to stand against this wave of new money entering the oil markets. And with a profits downturn probably already underway, it is instead important to ‘lock-in’ margins as much as possible. Companies routinely ‘hedge’ their currency exposure these days. Use of the LME futures contracts may well need to become a similarly essential tool.

The OECD produces useful leading indicators each month, which try to capture turning points in the global economy. Its industrial production indicator is very relevant to chemicals, as 85% of demand comes from this sector.

The latest outlook is summarised in Kevin Swift’s ACC report. The blue line is actual global industrial production, whilst the red line represents the OECD’s indicator. This is based on OECD countries plus the 6 main non-OECD countries. Kevin comments that November’s indicator ‘showed a marked deceleration’ versus previous data.

In terms of individual OECD countries, the indicator suggests a downturn now seems to be underway in the US, Germany and the UK, with Japan, France, Canada and Italy slowing down. China and Brazil are still expanding, Russia is improving, but India now appears to be weakening.

Reports from leading retailers such as Wal-Mart and Tesco provide the best real-time insight into what is really happening in the wider economy. It is clear from both companies’ recent results that US and some other western consumer markets are slowing very quickly. This has critical implications for chemical companies.

In the US, Wal-Mart see a ‘difficult retail environment’. Their core offering is now ‘Wal-Mart’s food performance…which helped drive traffic to other areas of the stores’. In response, their strategy is focused on ‘price leadership’, and they noted that ‘customers responded to our pricing and merchandise offerings’ over the holiday period.

Since the holiday season, US sales growth has slowed further. Tom Schoewe, CFO, said they were now seeing just 2% growth, compared to 2.6% during the holiday period. In real terms, after adjusting for inflation, this means that sales growth is now negative.

Tesco are seeing a similar pattern in the UK, reporting that sales growth is now just 3.1%. This is also negative in real terms. Andrew Higginson, Tesco’s finance director, said that ‘we have all been affected by the market, as it slows’.

Back in July, I noted that the same retailers were the first to spot that ‘consumer attitudes have shifted sharply in recent weeks’. At that time, they were reporting that price had become the critical factor, and said they were aiming to ‘lower prices by working with key suppliers’.

It is clear that core markets for chemicals - housing, autos, and now retail - are all becoming more difficult. It is therefore hard to be optimistic about the next few months. Feedstock costs are high, volumes are coming under threat from lower consumer demand, and so margins will suffer.

Back in October, I suggested that CFO’s might be wise to develop ‘contingency plans’ in case consumer spending weakened whilst banks stopped lending. It now looks as those plans will, unfortunately, be needed.

I have often wondered how the major investment banks arrive at their forecasts for long-term crude prices. Last night I found out how it is done at the biggest player, Barclays Capital.

Dr Paul Horsnell, Head of Commodities Research, said that when he started in the role in 2003, he began by keeping close to the mainstream with a forecast of $24/bbl. Since then, as the market price has risen, he has simply doubled the previous price, deducted $1/bbl, and this number has become his new long-term forecast.

So from a starting point of $24/bbl, he then moved to a $47/bbl forecast, and is currently forecasting $93/bbl. When he next revises the forecast, he expects it to go to $185/bbl.

The interesting thing was that in a room full of eminent energy economists, as well as many senior oil industry people, nobody took issue with his methodology.

I had the opportunity last night to learn current thinking within the oil industry on the current outlook for oil markets, by attending the annual lecture of the British Institute of Energy Economists, kindly hosted by BP.

A year ago, at the same event, the crude price was $51/bbl. Last night, the headlines were ‘major fall in oil price to $91/bbl’. This captures the extreme volatility that now exists in oil markets, and which makes life an absolute nightmare for anyone who buys or sells oil-based chemicals.

The consensus emerging from the discussion was that markets will remain strong, and that the activity of speculators will continue to create volatility. High oil prices are not likely to stimulate new supply in the short-term, as most reserves are in areas that are difficult to access due to politics or geography. Equally, demand will continue to grow in the Middle East and Asia, due to massive government subsidies on domestic prices.

Stock markets are usually good indicators of future economic conditions. Their savage downturn since the start of the year suggests that investors now feel a growth slowdown is almost inevitable.

Barrons (the major US investment paper) today highlights another very worrying development. It notes that ‘selling rallies aggressively is (now) more fruitful than buying every little dip’. This marks a complete change of behaviour by investors. Barrons suggests that the rationale is that now ‘overshoots tend to occur on the downside’ rather than on the upside.

The basis for the argument can be seen in the chart, which plots the relative performance of 5 main indices (the German DAX, UK FTSE 100, Shanghai Composite, US S&P500, Japan Nikkei) over the past month. All are down by around 15%, with Japan down over 20%.

These are major losses by any standard. Particularly at this time of year, when seasonal influences are strongly positive. And although rallies have taken place, these have soon given way to further falls. Last Friday, for example, news of the Bush stimulus package led to a major intra-day rally in the US, but the market still closed down. And today, more selling has taken place in Asia and Europe.

Unless something changes quickly, this synchronised downturn would imply that we are now in a fully-fledged global bear market. Strong rallies do occur in bear markets, just as corrections happen during bull markets. But they cannot disguise the fact that the overall trend has become negative.

In turn, this would suggest that chemical companies should not expect either that consumer demand will recover quickly, or that Asia will successfully ‘decouple’ its economy from western markets. They should also be very careful about credit risks, as if the economy does go into a slowdown, company defaults will rise.

The new ICIS Weekly Margin report on polyethylene is a goldmine for those who want to track the fortunes of the petchem industry.

The recent issue contains good news and bad news for producers:

• The good news is that PE margins have improved during January for integrated producers as a result of lower feedstock costs, higher cracker co-product values and higher PE prices.
• However, non-integrated producers are not yet seeing much improvement, as they have not been able to fully pass on the ethylene contract price increase.
• And the bad news is that the recovery in margins is starting from a low base. LDPE margins were down a massive 47% in Q4, versus the same period in 2006, whilst HDPE margins were down 55%.

Overall, though, 2007 was a reasonable year. Margins were down 9% for both LDPE and HDPE versus 2006, but this was mainly because of the Q4 downturn. As the chart shows, there was a dramatic fall towards the end of the year. Both European LDPE and ethylene contributions (the blue and yellow lines) hit lows in December that were last seen in early 2002 and late 2005.

Producers will certainly be hoping that today’s massive US Fed interest rates cuts, combined with the proposed Bush tax rebates, halts the current slide in consumer confidence and helps volumes and margins to recover.

CEOs seem to be following CFOs in worrying about the impact of the credit crunch and debt crisis. The annual CEO survey by PwC of 1150 executives shows that fears of a downturn now top their list of concerns.

US CEOs are much less confident than a year ago, with only 35% now ‘very confident’ about the short-term outlook. West European CEOs are also downbeat, with only 44% very confident about short-term prospects and just 36% confident about growth over the next 3 years.

This CEO gloom is based on a variety of factors that relate strongly to the chemical industry – the sub-prime mortgage crisis, the credit crunch, rising energy prices. It mirrors the record pessimism shown by CFOs last month in The Economist survey which (as I noted last month), found them worrying about ‘weak consumer demand, high fuel costs, rising labor costs and credit markets’.

The PwC survey is not all gloom, as it does reveal a striking difference between CEO attitudes in the western and emerging economies. PwC reports that ‘CEOs in Asia, Latin America and CEE are more confident’ than last year, and comments that this shows a belief that ‘their booming economies could insulate them’ from problems elsewhere.

However, PwC issue a mild health warning over the results, as the survey was taken at the end of last year. Since then, CEO confidence has probably declined, following recent financial turmoil. There are also growing doubts, as I discussed in December, about whether emerging economies really can ‘decouple’ from the West.

China’s ethylene and propylene imports have surged in recent months, as the country has diverted naphtha to supply gasoline and diesel needs.

ICIS news, reporting official China Customs figures, says 2007 ethylene imports were over 400% higher at 510KT, versus just 117KT in 2006. Ethylene exports also more than halved to 50KT in 2007, from 129KT in 2006.

Altogether, China’s net ethylene balance was therefore 472KT worse than in 2006. Propylene shows the same picture, with imports more than doubling in 2007 to 728KT versus 321KT in 2006.

Strong growth ahead of the Olympics is obviously part of the explanation. As is the fact that most of the country’s major new crackers won’t come online until 2009/10. But another key factor is the government’s need to prioritise gasoline and diesel production to ensure social stability.

As ICIS news reported last year ‘China has asked Sinopec and PetroChina to beef up their gasoline and diesel output to help relieve the country’s oil shortage since October’. And they quoted refinery sources as adding that ‘Diesel is tight in China. Reduced production of one tonne of ethylene would mean adding five tonnes of diesel.’

China’s dilemma highlights a wider problem for petchems. Crude supplies look to remain tight. This is driving up naphtha prices. But gasoline and diesel demand is continuing to grow strongly in many emerging countries, as governments such as China's instead subsidise domestic consumers.

Demand for transport fuels is therefore likely to stay relatively strong, as the world adjusts to a tighter oil supply/demand balance. Those petchem producers without access to advantaged feedstock may well face a difficult few years.

The credit crunch and associated debt crisis has elicited an unprecedented response from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Today, the head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kohn, told the Financial Times that the new IMF economic forecasts would ‘show a serious economic slowdown that needs a serious response’.

Just last autumn, the IMF was calling for ‘continued fiscal consolidation’ in the USA to reduce the budget deficit. Now, however, M Strauss-Kohn said he not only approved the US tax cut package, but also called on other countries to develop ‘a new fiscal policy to answer this crisis’.

Behind the IMF’s change of direction is a recognition that lower interest rates on their own ‘will not be enough to get us out of the turmoil we are in’. As I noted back on 7 January, many experts now believe that cutting interest rates is like ‘pushing on air’.

This is because the problem is not one of stimulating demand via interest rate cuts, but of trying to encourage lenders to resume lending. In this environment, lower interest rates may actually make matters worse, by reducing lenders’ incentive to lend.

Policy makers are therefore stuck between a rock and hard place. Higher rates might well encourage more lending, but would bankrupt all those many highly-geared people and companies who have borrowed beyond their means. The new head of Merrill Lynch, John Thain, has already ‘predicted that the problems in mortgage markets will spread to credit cards and consumer loans’.

If the IMF is right, then chemical industry sales to key consumer markets such as housing and autos look set to come under further pressure. Contagion from the growing crisis in financial markets may well now start to spread into the 'real economy' in which we live and work.

On my regular trip to Asia, the major news is the snowstorms battering China. These started on 10 January, and are expected to continue for at least another week.

The transportation system seems to have ground to a standstill in many areas as a result. and so essential coal and food supplies are not reaching the major cities. The NRDC reports that 17 of China’s provinces have already suffered electricity blackouts. Many factories have had to close as a result.

Premier Wen Jiabao has now gone further and called for ‘key enterprises to take social responsibility’ and shutdown their operations. The Wall Street Journal reports that 78 million people have so far been affected by the storms, with 24 deaths recorded and 107000 homes destroyed.

This will make for a miserable Lunar New Year in China, with food shortages reported. Clearly chemicals production and demand will also be badly affected.

Andrew Liveris, Dow’s CEO, commented today that Dow now have ‘a total clampdown on costs and capital expenditure’. Whilst other CEO’s told the Financial Times that ‘rising oil prices, sagging consumer confidence and the on-going credit crunch’ are causing them to put in place ‘contingency plans to protect against the expected economic downturn’.

Separately, Bill Gross of Pimco, who manages the largest bond fund in the world, has said that he doesn’t expect the US interest rate cuts and tax rebates to rescue the housing market. In his monthly client newsletter, he comments:

‘Mr. Bernanke – we have a problem. First of all these 6-7% 30-year mortgages now require a significantly higher down payment than in prior years. 20% down? Say what? Where does a 30-year-old couple get that kind of money?
Secondly, however, and just as important, what motivates a future homeowner to pay 6%+ interest for an asset that is going down in price?’

The difficulty now for CEOs and CFOs lies in judging just how deep current problems might prove, and how long they might last. Gross goes on to suggest that only the provision of ‘subsidized mortgage rates with minimal down payments’ will cause US housing markets to bottom. He suggests that this won’t happen until next year, when a new US administration is in place.

If he is right, then US chemical producers cannot look for any short-term improvement in their main market, housing. And with China in the middle of severe winter storms, demand in the Asian region is probably about to dip for some weeks. Transportation is being hit very badly, and even where chemical plants are still able to run, product is often having to be warehoused as a result. Equally, many customers are already shutdown by lack of power, as coal supplies fail to arrive.

A slowdown in both the US and China is a potentially lethal combination for chemical demand, particularly as we come into what should be the seasonally strongest period of the year.

OPEC’s decision to hold its production quota at last Friday’s meeting came as no surprise to the markets, which were busy taking prices down $2/bbl on renewed fears of a US recession. But it did produce a warning from the International Energy Agency (IEA) that OPEC’s policies ‘threaten the strength of the global economy’.

The decision also tells us something very significant about current oil market politics. Because it was only last month that President Bush had made a direct appeal to the Saudis to lift oil production. And there have only been two previous occasions when a sitting US President has failed to influence OPEC discussions via the Saudis.

The first was in 1973-4, in the aftermath of the ‘Yom Kippur’ war, which resulted in OPEC oil embargoes. The second was in 1979-80, during the Iran hostages crisis. At all other times, the relationship between the US and the Saudis has been based on the close personal linkages established at the famous Valentine’s Day meeting 62 years ago between Saudi Arabia’s King Abdulaziz and then US President FD Roosevelt.

Saudi Oil Minister Naimi was typically Delphic in his comment after the OPEC meeting, commenting that ‘supply and demand are equal, and global reserves are fine’. And it is true that the Saudis have increased their own production to 9.2mbd in response to US requests. But probably two factors caused this historic rebuff to take place:

• Pragmatic. As noted at the time of the last OPEC meeting, the La Nina weather system generally produces mild winters on the US East coast. This has happened in 2008. Equally, the severe winter storms in China (attributed by government meteorologists to La Nina), will reduce demand still further, just as it normally takes a seasonal dip.
• Politics. It is probably hard for the Saudis to force through an OPEC increase with so much political tension around the Middle East. The US threat to bomb suspected Iranian nuclear facilities is clearly creating major tension in the region, and it would be difficult, if not impossible, for the Saudis to respond to a US appeal at the moment.

Quite why, in the light of these factors, President Bush chose to issue his personal appeal must be a matter of debate. History, as well as the IEA, is warning us that its rejection implies that oil markets are likely to stay difficult for some time.

Chemical companies tend to trade on ‘open book’ terms with long-established customers. They are also supportive when those customers are facing problems in their end-markets. In a recession, these admirable qualities can become expensive.

ICIS news reports tonight that the bankruptcy of Plastech Engineered Products in the US has led to debts of nearly $5m for 4 of the major US polymer producers. Plastech was a supplier of door panels and other items to Chrysler, and got into difficulty due to the alarming auto industry downturn chronicled here in recent months. Dow are apparently owed $1.57m, Basell $1.4m, BASF $1.02m and SABIC $970k, according to bankruptcy court documents.

CFOs and sales heads need to look urgently at their terms of trade with companies in recession affected industries such as housing and autos, as Plastech will probably not be the last company to fold. For example, as I commented 2 months ago:

“I would not be surprised if ‘cash before delivery’ soon becomes the norm for some companies. This may seem a harsh requirement, and may lose some sales in the short-term, but it is far better than standing in line for repayment after the worst has happened.”

These decisions are not taken lightly, but no chemical company can afford to take losses on this scale on a regular basis. I fear that a new generation is about to learn what some of us had the misfortune to go through in 1980-83 and 1990-2. If they can learn from our experience, and avoid some of the most extreme disasters, then everyone will benefit.

Very few non-OPEC oil projects have been financed in recent years, although market prices have risen from $20/bbl to $100/bbl. This is because oil companies and banks assumed that current prices would fall back to $40/bbl, or even lower, within 3 – 5 years.

But a new reality has been dawning, summed up by Total’s CEO last year, when he commented that major production increases from today’s $85mbd ‘would be difficult’ to achieve. Now BP have also reacted. Under new CEO Tony Hayward, they will now test projects against an assumption of $60/bbl. This 50% increase reflects a growing sense that the oil price will stay higher, and for longer, than oil companies had previously expected.

Futures markets still regard this price as too low. WTI for 2009 delivery is trading today at $85/bbl, and for 2016 delivery at $88/bbl. Buyers at these prices are aware that history would suggest oil prices should tumble in a US/western recession. But they also know that most demand growth is now taking place in Asia, and this is less price-sensitive due to subsidies.

Will the change in BP’s assumptions lead to more oil appearing? BP will certainly now invest more money, but construction costs have more than doubled in recent years. So the net effect will not be large. But at least they are investing. This was something that never appealed to Hayward’s predecessor, Lord Browne. His priority was always share buy-backs rather than investment.

‘‘I despair at times at why the equity markets can’t see how serious the credit crunch is’, said one senior credit analyst at an investment bank. ‘They just trade off the day-to-day newsflow’.

This interview from yesterday’s Financial Times reminds me of last July, when I noted how financial markets seemed to have become divorced from reality.

My musing then was prompted by the fact that Access had offered $12bn for the Lyondell business. This struck me as an extraordinary amount of money. Net debt was forecast at $22bn and 5.5 times current ebitda. And although the deal has now closed, I understand that the underwriting banks have still not been able to offload the debt into the market. This is a clear sign of the problems in credit markets to which the FT is referring.

Equally worrying is the fact that Wal-Mart, probably the best managed company in the world, yesterday reported that US sales were ‘below expectations’ during January. If Wal-Mart are now being surprised on the downside, then it is clear that things are really bad in US retail markets.

The FT goes on to warn that debt markets are growing ‘increasingly pessimistic about companies’ ability to withstand the bursting credit bubble and a possible recession’. Equally, the Wal-Mart warning means that US domestic chemical sales in the first half of the year will probably be much weaker than normal seasonal trends would suggest.

The prudent course for CEOs and CFOs must be to ignore the rose-tinted glasses still being worn in equity markets. They need to review January’s performance for early signs of weakness. They also need to test current budgets against an assumption that credit markets will get worse. Unfortunately, this week’s Plastech bankruptcy is probably not an isolated event, but just the first of many.

I noted last month that China seemed to have changed policy with regard to the renminbi. Since then, its rise versus the US$ has accelerated, as shown in the above chart from Merrill Lynch (ML). Since August, it has been rising at an annualised rate of 13%.

ML’s explanation is that the government is having to relax credit controls as the economy slows. The recent snowstorms have further loosened policy. Yet with wage inflation now at 18%, something needs to tighten and so the exchange rate is being allowed to rise. ML say 'it is possibly the fastest sustained appreciation' since the PRC was founded in 1949.

ML suggest that the increase will continue, and that it will cause Asian interest rates to rise in sympathy, as well as Asian exchange rates. Outside Asia, the impact will be to export inflation to N America and Europe, as China’s export prices rise in $, € and £ terms.

This is good news for chemical exporters to China. But at a macro level, it means that the ‘virtuous circle’ of the past decade, under which China exported deflation, is well on the way to reversing itself. In turn, this will eventually limit the ability of Western central banks to cut their interest rates to try and stave off recession.

The US Fed has dramatically cut interest rates by 1.25% recently. But as it eases, so US banks seem to be tightening their lending criteria for mortgages. Present standards are the tightest recorded

Since 1990, the Fed has asked banks about their lending standards. The chart above (by Merrill Lynch) shows the results. From 1992-2006, banks were relaxing standards most of the time. And even when they tightened, it was only by relatively small amounts, with no more than 20% of the US population being affected.

But over the past year, there has been a major, and unprecedented, change. As the above chart (complied by Merrill Lynch) shows, over 70% of Americans are now finding it harder to get a mortgage. 85% of banks have tightened their standards. And the change is not just affecting the subprime market. Over 50% of banks have tightened their standards for traditional prime mortgages.

The implications of this are enormous. It means that stimulating demand, whether by interest rate cuts or tax rebates, is unlikely to significantly reduce today’s inventory of new and existing US homes, which now stands at 9.6 months. Previous demand relied on lax lending standards – and today’s tighter policies mean that previously qualified buyers cannot now return to the market, even if interest rates go to zero percent.

So in reality, trying to stimulate demand is like pushing on a string. The only way to bring housing supply/demand back into balance is to reduce supply. And as anyone who has ever traded oil products or petchems knows, the only mechanism to achieve this is a sustained period of falling prices.

The banks have clearly recognised this new fact of life, which is why they are rushing (too late, of course) to try and reduce their exposure. Unfortunately, from a chemical industry standpoint, this could help to ensure that sales to the important housing market may take months, if not years, to properly recover.

Its not normally a good sign when chemical industry bosses feel the need to cheerlead on the outlook for the economy.

Dow’s CEO Andrew Liveris therefore caught my attention at Davos, when he told CNBC that talk of recession was ‘over-reaction’. Particularly when he then corrected himself, adding that what he had meant to say was ‘I won’t say there won’t be a recession – but there’s an over-reaction’.

This week, BASF Chairman Jürgen Hambrecht has taken up the role of cheerleader. Interviewed by the Financial Times, he revealed that he was ‘sleeping well at night.’ He conceded that in some industries related to housing and the consumer there was ‘a little bit of inflection’ from credit problems. But overall he was serenely confident, adding ‘why should there be a big, big crisis? I can’t see this happening’.

Unfortunately, his compatriot Peer Steinbrück, the German finance minister, was less upbeat over the weekend. Speaking after the G7 finance meeting in Tokyo, Steinbrück said the ‘G7 now thought subprime losses could reach $400bn’. This is quite an increase from the original $50bn estimate made by the US Fed. It also implies $280bn of write-offs are still to come, as total losses revealed to date are ‘only’ $120bn.

The Bank of England’s quarterly survey of corporate credit conditions, published today, shows that companies are finding it harder to get credit, and that rates are rising. This is in spite of the massive liquidity injections made by the Bank over the past 6 months, and its 0.5% interest rate cut.

The Bank says that ‘lenders reported a tightening of credit supply in Q4 and expect to tighten supply further in coming months’. Equally, as shown in the chart, the Bank says that ‘the effective rate of borrowing has remained elevated, despite falls in Bank Rate'. The Bank also worries that ‘although the effective rate on new business has fallen since its peak in August, this decline may be misleading, as it is likely to reflect the fact that as banks cut back on riskier higher-rate loans, the average rate on new lending falls'.

I noted 2 months ago that CFO pessimism was increasing in the chemical sector. This week’s reports from the Fed and Bank of England will do nothing to lighten their mood.

Ratings agencies Moody’s and S&P started taking a heavy line with Sabic in December over the supposed decline in the business environment at Sabic Innovative Plastics (the former GE Plastics business). This caused me to speculate that they were preparing the ground for a more wide-ranging move.

Today’s S&P report on private equity owned companies confirms my suspicions. S&P has looked at 36 European buyouts, including some major chemical names. It compares 2007 performance with the forecasts made when the deals were being done over the past 18 months.

S&P’s conclusion are worrying. Firstly, they report that the median company missed its first year forecast for EBITDA by 5%. And if this wasn’t bad enough (given that the period was a boom time in terms of margins and earnings), they add that net debt targets at many companies were only met by squeezing capex and working capital. And they add that 20% of the companies surveyed would breach loan covenants if their EBITDA fell by 10% or less.

The Lex column in the Financial Times sums up the report, with admirable restraint, by commenting that ‘if the corporate profit cycle turns, as seems inevitable, inappropriate capital structures will leave many buyouts in big trouble’. S&P’s report suggests that worried CFOs now have to wonder whether the risk of continuing to supply such companies on open book terms is one they should be taking.

China has been a major source of price deflation for the past decade. It is now the world’s leading manufacturer of a whole range of products from microwaves to DVDs. And the rest of the world has benefited from the lower prices that it has provided.

But not any more. The attached chart from the ACC’s weekly report shows that import prices from China into the USA increased by a record 3.3% in January. The trend is also worrying. For years, import prices were falling at around 1% a year. Now they are on a steep upward path.

I noted last week that the renminbi is now rising at an annualised 13% rate, whilst Chinese wage inflation is running at 18%. This implies that import prices from China could continue to rise over the next few months.

The UK government has today nationalised the country’s 8th largest bank, responsible for 18.9% of UK mortgage lending.

You may remember that Northern Rock was an immediate victim of the US subprime crisis. Its funding model, based on securitisation, failed to work once lenders became more concerned about return of capital than return on capital. Since September, the Bank of England has been forced to provide GBP 55 bn of emergency funding, following the UK’s first bank run in over 100 years.

The government even employed Goldman Sachs to scout the world and seek new investors. Sovereign Wealth Funds and others were approached, but none would agree to participate in a rescue. And so a bank which had an asset value of over GBP 100 billion in August, is now dependent on government for its survival.

The absence of Northern Rock will put further pressure on the UK housing market. Northern Rock had grown via aggressive lending, providing loans at multiples of 10 times salary, more than treble historical norms. In turn, this will reduce chemical industry sales to this important sector.

There’s an interesting article on Bloomberg, suggesting that the US Fed’s dramatic interest rates reductions are ‘driving Asia’s governments back to controlled economies’.

Its argument is that by cutting rates, Bernanke is ‘limiting his Asian counterparts’ ability to curb inflation'. It goes on to argue that Asian banks cannot now raise domestic interest rates to restrict demand, as a ‘widening spread between US and Asian borrowing costs draws more foreign money into the region’, causing asset bubbles to appear.

The same effect will occur if they allow their exchange rate to rise too quickly versus the dollar. And Asian central banks certainly don’t want to encourage a repeat of the US housing bubble in their own countries. So they are instead being forced to impose price controls on essential goods, in a bid to restrain inflation.

As I noted on 10 January, China froze the prices of oil products, natural gas and electricity, as well as public transportation. 5 days later, just as the Fed embarked on its 2nd round of interest rate cuts, it added price controls on grain, cooking oil, meat products, milk, eggs and LPG. The rationale can be seen in today’s announcement that inflation hit 7.1% in January, the highest for 11 years.

The problem, of course, is that domestic price controls (which also now apply in many other Asian countries for similar reasons), reduce the incentive to cut back on consumption as world prices move higher. The same is true for oil and gasoline prices, which are subsidised across Asia and also in many OPEC countries.

Thus the law of unintended consequences applies. These subsidies mean that supply and demand will be much slower to rebalance. So the net effect is that as the Fed reduces rates to try to avoid a severe US recession, it is indirectly causing global food and energy prices to rise. And in the end, if inflation starts to spiral out of control, rate increases may become essential, even in the US.

Quietly, oil has moved back to the $100/bbl level.

This is quite different from January, when it first hit the magic $100/bbl number. Financial players had jumped on the trend from November as crude rose above $80/bbl, and then wanted to ‘get out at the top’. Their thinking was that a US recession would reduce demand for oil, and so prices would fall. Now, however, more fundamental forces seem to be taking prices higher, and causing the 'shorts' to cover their positions.

The problem for the chemicals industry is that this purely speculative behaviour creates additional volatility. And with $120bn already ‘invested’ by financial players in commodities, much of it in oil, companies must assume that ‘speculative volatility’ will increase.

The behaviour of financial players is not the only uncertainty currently driving oil prices. Apart from the impact of geo-political issues such as Iran, Nigeria and Venezuela, four key questions will influence the direction of oil prices in 2008:

• Does OPEC care that higher oil prices will damage the western economy? In the past, the answer would have been ‘yes’, but recent signs (their decision to ignore President Bush’s plea for lower prices last month) imply their thinking may have changed.
• Can net non-OPEC supply increase as much as expected this year? Production from existing fields in Mexico and the N Sea has recently been decreasing faster than expected. This means more new oil has to be produced, to make up the difference.
• Will Asian and OPEC countries continue to subsidise oil products? If they do, then higher world prices will have no effect on the countries where fastest demand growth is taking place.
• Will financial players and pension funds see oil as a hedge against a falling US$? Some are already viewing the ‘US recession’ argument from a different angle, and believe it will force the Fed to cut interest rates back to 1%, causing the US$ to fall further.

The downturn in the global economy has been impacting chemical margins since the summer. Profits have been hit, as key customer industries such as housing, autos, and retail became more price conscious. Demand has also been slowing, as higher oil prices acted as a tax on Western consumption. Now feedstock volatility is likely to increase, due to the growing influence of financial players. CEOs and CFOs therefore need to ensure that proper risk management tools are in place to protect margins.

BASF Chairman Jürgen Hambrecht sounded confident last week, following their annual results.

2007 sales were €58bn (up 10% on 2006), and income from operations was €7.3bn (up 8%). However, Q4 saw sales up just 1.6% at €14.7bn, and income actually down 3.4% at €1.6bn.

The main culprit in Q4 was chemicals. Sales were marginally down on 2006 at €3.4bn (partly due to the impact of extended plant turnarounds), but income fell 50%. Unsurprisingly, N America was the problem region, with sales down 11% and income down 64%. BASF was clearly hit very hard, as one would expect, by higher feedstock costs and the downturn in housing and autos.

However, BASF was supported by a solid performance from its oil and gas business, where their main partner is Gazprom. The sector accounted for only 18% of 2007 sales, but contributed 41% of total profit. This was a very good performance given the strength of the euro, as the $7/bbl increase in the average price of Brent translated into just a €1/bbl increase for BASF.

The sector’s Q4 performance was excellent. BASF faces a headwind in its gas business when prices are rising, as it takes time to pass on these increases to customers. (Of course, it benefits from the same effect when prices fall). But although oil and gas sales were flat at €3.1bn, they still contributed €800m and represented 50% of total Group income.

BASF are continuing to reshape the portfolio, and hope to complete the styrenics sale within a few weeks. This would follow previous petchem divestments (eg Basell), and the acquisition of late-cycle businesses (eg Engelhard). BASF’s low debt ratio is also a strength as the credit crisis worsens. Whilst its Verbund strategy of highly integrated sites provides cost leadership, which is always critical during a downturn.

Chemicals and plastics will probably cause increased problems for BASF in 2008. But oil prices are already well above BASF’s budget figure of $78/bbl. So its perhaps understandable that Hambrecht felt able to tell the Financial Times he is currently still ‘sleeping well at night.’

Wheat prices rose 25% yesterday, the biggest one-day rise ever, as Kazakhstan imposed restrictions on wheat exports.

The rationale for today’s rising prices is three-fold:
• US farmers have shifted land over to corn, to meet increased ethanol demand, and US wheat inventories are forecast to hit 60 year lows
• Emerging countries are now eating more meat, because of growing prosperity, and so more grain is required to feed livestock
• Financial players see ‘soft commodities’ such as wheat as representing a store of value, versus weak currencies such as the US$

Inevitably increases of this magnitude will feed through into higher inflation. In turn, longer-term bond rates will increase. Chemical company CFOs were already facing problems from the credit crunch. Higher food and energy prices can only make these problems worse.

Its not often that one gets clear statements from central bankers. Today’s comment from the Bank of England’s Deputy Governor that the credit crunch was ‘an accident waiting to happen’ is truly remarkable for its clarity. She also gives the best one sentence summary that I have seen on the background to today’s credit crunch. :

‘The US housing crisis has acted as the trigger for an overdue correction in financial markets, after a long period of plentiful liquidity during which risk premia of all sorts had become unduly compressed, asset prices had become detached from reality, financial innovation had run ahead of risk management, and unsound business models had led to a deterioration in credit monitoring and, in some areas, underlying credit quality.’

She summarised it as ‘the largest ever peacetime liquidity crisis’.

US housing markets are getting worse. Today’s S&P/Case-Schiller index showed prices declined 8.9% in December. Moody’s said that 10% of homeowners (8.8 million people) had negative equity in their homes. And unsurprisingly, given this background, bank repossessions rose 90% versus January 2007 levels.

Price changes generally follow changes in volume, up or down. And so yesterday’s existing home data from the US Realtors Association indicates that we are still some distance from a price bottom. January’s sales were 23.4% below the level of January 2007. Inventory, the other major indicator, is also still moving in the wrong direction. It is now at 10.3 months, compared to 9.7 months in December.

The underlying problem is that credit availability continues to tighten. The Realtors say ‘subprime loans and other risky mortgage products have virtually disappeared from the market’. And the Fed’s interest rate cuts are having little impact on the price of credit for those able to get loans. The standard 30 year mortgage rate was 6.22% a year ago, and is now 5.76%. Had the rate followed the Fed’s cuts, it would be 3.97%.

The same reluctance to lend is now developing in the UK, following the Northern Rock nationalisation. ‘The Guardian’ reports today that lenders are focused on margin preservation as credit markets tighten, and are no longer ‘worried about market share and volume’. 125% mortgages are unavailable for new applicants, and many major lenders are now demanding 25% deposits for the first time in many years.

In the past, comments ‘The Guardian’, falls in house prices have normally been driven by rising unemployment. This time, however, the main factor is the ‘credit crunch’, which means there is a ‘lack of funds for lenders’. Until this can be resolved, chemical companies will continue to suffer from the double whammy of lower sales into the critical housing market, and higher borrowing costs.

The blog has been following the debate over ‘decoupling’ with some interest. With the US going into a downturn, it is critical to understand whether Asian chemical markets will follow. Until recently, they have been buoyant, allowing US companies to make up for some of the decline in their domestic markets via exports. But I suggested back in December that this would probably not last.

Today’s news from Japan tends to confirms my scepticism. Factory output fell 2% in January. Bloomberg reports this was because ‘a deepening US slump weakened demand for cars and electronics’. Even worse, companies expect output this month to slide a further 2.9%. March may be better, as inventories will have been worked off.

Japanese central bankers can do little to stimulate the economy, with interest rates near zero. Governor Fukui said last week that ‘a deeper slump in the world’s biggest economy (the US) would have adverse effects on the emerging markets that Japanese exporters depend on’. With the US$ weakening as well, markets seem likely to get increasingly tough for Asian chemical companies.

China’s move last month to charge for plastic bags has now been followed by the iconic UK retailer, Marks & Spencer.

Whilst the environmental angle is clearly important, the move also represents a reaction to higher oil prices. Plastic bags are not ‘free’ to retailers, and their cost is now escalating. Restricting this cost, whilst also gaining ‘green’ credentials, is a ‘win-win’ for them. Similarly, its a ‘lose-lose’ for polymer producers. They have to pay the higher feedstock cost, and will now have lower volumes, so unit costs will increase.

Even worse, it probably marks the start of a more general movement to restrict ‘non-essential’ uses of crude oil. Gordon Brown, UK premier, has now said the UK government will force all supermarkets to charge within a year. Other governments will no doubt follow. The benefits of plastics are not well understood by the general public, and represent a soft target. Operating rates for producers and converters will suffer as a result.

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'A vicious circle now seems to be in place again, where a lower dollar inspires raw material prices to rally, which in turn increases worries about inflation’. This was how strategists at BNP Paribas summed up the US Fed Chairman’s two days of testimony to Congress last week.

For the last 20 years, every Chairman and US Treasury Secretary has paid at least lip service to the concept of ‘the strong dollar’. Hank Paulson repeated the mantra on Thursday. But Bernanke did not once mention the phrase to Congress. Currency and commodity traders were quick to take the hint. The $ dived to new lows against both the euro and yen. Oil prices also jumped to new record highs.

A 2nd stage of the financial crisis that began last August now seems to threaten. The 1st stage was the discovery that US houses (and those in several other western countries) were no longer worth the price that had been paid for them. This led to a collapse in house-building, and a general tightening of global credit markets.

Now, the Fed sems to be encouraging the $ to fall, with Bernanke commenting that this would have ‘the benefit of stimulating exports’. But as Barrons, the influential US investment magazine noted, this policy carries the risk of creating an ‘inflationary maelstrom’. Just as in 1973, they added, oil producers may get ‘tired of parting with their precious petroleum for depreciated dollars’.

The combination of lower economic growth, tighter credit conditions, and commodity/feedstock price inflation is potentially a toxic cocktail. Some companies selling into buoyant agchem markets will have no problem overcoming it. But others face a more uncertain future.

Anthony Bolton of Fidelity has been the UK’s premier stock picker for 30 years. His learnings from his ‘worst disasters’ provide an insider's perspective on how to spot a company that’s about to fail. He revealed his top 3 warning signs in the Financial Times this weekend:

‘If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then its a duck’. This simple logic probably best sums up Warren Buffett’s position on the current state of the US economy. ‘By any commonsense definition’, said Buffett yesterday, ‘the US is in recession’.

Buffett is the world’s leading investor. And key evidence from a chemical industry perspective supports his conclusion. US vehicle sales fell 10% in January, after a terrible 2007. Housing starts are 50% down on earlier peaks, and US house prices are falling nationally for the first time since the Depression. As Buffett added, ‘most people (are) experiencing recession’, and ‘their net worth (is) heading south’.

Buffett’s warning about the US$ was also worrying, with his belief that it ‘is going to get weaker over time’. Last year, the lower $ allowed US chemical companies to compensate via increased exports for slow domestic markets. But the $'s latest fall means that it is now challenging the ¥102 level, which has held for over a decade.

Equally, investors search for a reliable ‘store of value’ is causing them to chase commodity prices higher. Speculative long positions on NYMEX crude oil rose 50.4% last week, as financial players rushed to exit the US$. Many expect crude to hit the $110-$115/bbl level shortly.

OPEC today decided to hold oil production at current levels, even though prices are at a level which clearly threaten economic growth. They even recognised this risk in their statement, ‘highlighting the economic slowdown in the USA, which together with the deepening credit crisis in financial markets, is increasing the downside risks for world economic growth and, consequently, demand for crude oil’.

Normally, faced with this outlook, OPEC would have flooded the market with crude, in order to bring prices down and help support the world economy. Clearly their priorities have changed, and we appear to be back to the difficult times of 1973/4 and 1979/80, when OPEC similarly held production whilst the world economy went into a downturn.

OPEC’s statement seems to reflect a growing hostility towards the US over a number of issues, including the weak US$ (as noted by the New York Times). Saudi Arabia, the leading OPEC moderate, clearly feels let down by the lack of progress in the Middle East peace talks. And OPEC also decided to support Venezuela’s ‘sovereign rights over its natural resources’ in its dispute with ExxonMobil, calling on EM to hold back from further legal actions to support its claims.

Faced with this background, chemical company planners need to rethink their crude oil scenarios for the year. I argued back in October that the consensus $70/bbl forecast looked too optimistic. Now, with OPEC taking a hard line, and western investors starting to panic over the value of the US$, we are in uncharted and potentially dangerous territory.

Central bankers are slowly recognising that inflation is becoming a serious problem. But their responses differ. So chemical companies will find it harder to predict interest and exchange rate policies.

China announced yesterday that inflation had soared again last month, reaching 8.7%, versus the government target of 4.8%. Part of the increase is clearly due to the effects of recent major storms. But with the US Fed likely to cut rates soon, China remains in a difficult position. If it increases interest rates, then the currency will rise further, making it a target for ‘hot money’. If it doesn’t, then inflation (particularly in food and energy) will continue to rise.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg has analysed developments in US fixed income markets and suggests that bond traders now believe that the US Fed is about to ‘lose control of inflation’. Since 29 February, the yields on US Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) have been negative. Buyers are apparently prepared to give up ‘real yield today’ for the security of inflation-proofing in the future.

Against this background, it is perhaps not surprising that traders pushed up crude prices yesterday to a new record of $107.91/bbl, as they continued to search for a ‘store of value’. US natural gas prices have also strengthened recently, and are now over $10/MBTU.

India is apparently facing its own subprime crisis. Banks have cut back on lending, as the Bank of India has caused real interest rates to rise to around 7%. Loan growth is already down 20% this year, with personal unsecured loans facing the greatest cutbacks.

ICICI, India’s largest bank, has withdrawn entirely from this sector, which was formerly growing at 40% a year. V Vaidyanathan, executive director at ICICI, said ‘we have tightened credit norms across all elements of the credit portfolio. Though the existing book is performing well, its better to be conservative’.

As a result, India’s GDP is now expected to be around 8 – 9% this year. Earlier optimistic expectations of 10% growth now look unrealistic.

The US$ had now fallen through the ¥102 level, which has held since 1995, and went straight to the psychologically important ¥100 level. The dollar peaked 9 months ago at ¥124, and so it has now fallen 19%. This is dramatic by any standards. I forecast back in November that an ‘old-fashioned currency crisis’ could be just around the corner. With the dollar falling against both the yen and the euro, I think this crisis has probably now arrived.

My other recent forecast, that crude would hit $110/bbl, has taken only a week to occur. Yet a month ago, crude was 'only' $90/bbl. Part of the rise was caused by speculators having to unwind short positions, but there is also increasing interest in call options at $150/bbl. I have even heard people talking seriously about the chance that $200/bbl could be seen before the end of the year. As I commented after the OPEC meeting, we are now ‘in uncharted and potentially dangerous territory’.

The Financial Times this morning reports that the US Fed fears that ‘the economic downturn in the US could turn into a deep and protracted recession of the kind that plagued Japan’. Clearly based on interviews with senior Fed officials and other policymakers, the two articles (one for the European edition, and one for the US) provide a remarkable insight into the Fed’s current thinking:

I am indebted to Paul Krugman for passing on this piece of black humour, now going the rounds in financial markets.

Unfortunately, these problems are getting closer to home. Carlyle, who have a number of private equity investments in chemical companies, defaulted on a $16.6bn bond fund today.

We have now seen 3 financial disasters in a matter of days:

• Northern Rock, the UK’s 5th largest mortgage lender, was nationalised last month, after failing to secure sufficient funds to continue lending.
• Carlyle, one of the world’s largest private equity firms, saw their $16.6bn mortgage fund default on Thursday, due to its excess leverage.
• Bear Stearns, the 5th largest US investment bank, had to be rescued by the US Fed/JP Morgan over the weekend, as it too hit a liquidity crisis.

Bear were the subject of one of my first postings in the blog, last July, when I commented that its hedge fund troubles sent ‘a chill down my spine’. My fears have been amply justified by subsequent events. As the BBC’s business editor, Robert Peston, said on Friday, "the rescue of Bear Stearns demonstrates that the worst of the global credit crunch is not yet behind us." He added ‘that if Bear Stearns had been allowed to collapse, it could have put the whole financial system at risk’.

And although stocks rallied globally on Thursday, after S&P were reported as saying the end of subprime writedowns was ‘now in sight’, it is clear from reading the full S&P statement that their real views are quite different:

‘We believe that any near-term positive impact of reducing subprime risk in the financial system via increased disclosure and write-downs will be offset by worsening problems in the broader U.S. real estate market and in other segments of the credit markets. A major repricing of credit risk is taking place across the debt markets, with credit spreads having further widened in most segments since the beginning of 2008’

As I have noted since September, the whole zeitgeist is changing in financial markets, with lenders now focused on ‘return of capital’, rather than ‘return on capital’. Clearly, they don’t like the prospects they see ahead, and who can blame them? But with housing markets so important to the chemical industry, it is hard to believe that we will avoid major impact from the financial disasters now taking place.

The US$ took a major tumble yesterday, as traders decided the Bear Stearns news meant there was little risk of central bank intervention. Against the Japanese yen it fell almost 2.5% during the day, closing at ¥97.35, as shown on the chart. It also fell 2% against the Swiss Franc to SwFr 0.98, and continues to hit new lows against the euro.

The $ is now at its weakest since 1971 on a trade-weighted basis. This will have a major impact on chemical company results:

Winners will be those who buy feedstocks in dollars, and sell in hard currencies such as the euro, yen or SwFr.
Losers will be those who buy in hard currencies, and sell in dollars

US exporters are likely to do well as a result. But one should expect to hear cries of real pain from the losers as Quarter 1 results are reported.

Benzene prices may be about to tell us something quite important about future profitability trends for the chemical industry. As the chart shows, benzene has hit a price ceiling at around $1200/t over the past 4 years in European markets. Yet crude has been climbing, from an average $38/bbl in 2004 to average $95/bbl so far this year.

Equally benzene prices, normally the most volatile of all the petchems, have suddenly become quite ‘normal’. Volatility was typically above 100% between 2001 – 2004, using average European monthly spot prices reported by ICIS pricing. But so far this year, they have moved within just a 12% range, after a range of only 27% in 2007.

The $1200/t price ceiling suggests that it has now become very difficult to pass on today’s higher crude/feedstock prices. Equally, it seems unlikely that benzene prices will remain unnaturally stable for very much longer. If they start to slip, whilst naphtha stays strong, then we will know that the outlook for commodity petchem profitability itself has also weakened.

The New York Times has an excellent feature today that aims to explain how ‘US sub-prime mortgages could take out the whole global financial system’. I know that many readers found the Bird/Fortune video on the subject very useful last December. So I thought you might like to know about this new analysis.

The Times reporter called a number of senior figures on Wall Street, asking them the simple question ‘Can you explain this to me?’ After they had finished, he often then asked ‘Can you try again?’ He concludes:

• The US had a housing ‘bubble’, which is now going ‘bust’
• Massive leverage meant that even small losses led to equity wipe-outs
• All ‘busts lead to panics’, which can cause ‘long, deep, economic downturns’
• ‘Unprecedented’ actions are now being used to try and restore confidence

The above chart comes from Kevin Swift’s weekly report for the American Chemistry Council. Sadly, it paints a downbeat picture for the near-term outlook for the US chemical industry. It shows that US housing starts fell a further 0.6% in February, whilst building permits fell 7.8%.

Housing starts are now down 28% versus a year ago, and building permits are down 37%. In absolute terms, they are back to 1990 levels, and still falling. This is very bad news, as housing is a key market for the chemical industry, with each new home requiring $16k of chemicals.

The only bright spot for US producers is that they have been able to compensate for this domestic decline via increased exports. As I noted last week, the US $ is now back at 1971 levels on a trade-weighted basis. The report shows rail car loadings are now up 3.4% versus last year as a result. But I doubt that these levels of exports are sustainable. Asian and European markets are probably already slowing themselves, now the US has moved into recession.

Volatility has been rising in the crude oil and feedstocks markets. This is because individual players have completely different strategies. In turn, this makes it difficult for chemical companies to forecast short-term feedstock costs. It also makes it difficult to maintain margins.

Last Monday, crude reached a new high of $111/bbl. Then, as the scale of the Bear Stearns collapse became apparent, it fell over $10/bbl. Currently, it is trading around $100/bbl. A number of different rationales have been put forward to explain this sudden fall:

• Many commentators have taken it as a sign that the US recession will reduce demand, causing prices to weaken. Latest EIA figures show a rare, if minor, 0.1% decline in gasoline demand over the past month.
• Other analysts have pointed out that last week’s wild swings in equity markets caused major losses for many investors, requiring them to meet margin calls by selling out their positions in commodities.
• They have also added that Bear Stearns’ Proprietary Trading Group had been very active in crude oil futures, and it was likely that its positions had been sold quickly once its collapse had been confirmed.
• Equally, others have argued that crude’s recent strength was due to US $ weakness, as investors used commodities as a ‘store of value’. They now expect the US $ to strengthen, reducing their attractiveness.

All of these analyses probably have some element of truth in them. Over the longer-term, prices will be set by the fundamentals of supply and demand, which in turn will be influenced by geo-politics. But last week’s ‘perfect storm’ of events illustrates just how complex it has become to forecast day-to-day market action in crude oil markets.

Those who liked my earlier posting about Margin calling, might like to look at the new online Financial Times page devoted to subprime jokes. For example, 'What's the definition of an optimistic investment banker?' 'Someone who irons 5 business shirts on a Sunday night.'

It also mentions the prospect of a new breakfast cereal being launched, ‘Credit Crunch’. One hopes this won’t be served along the RiverWalk at San Antonio during next week’s NPRA meeting.

After 5 months, ExxonMobil is once again the world’s largest company by market capitalisation. PetroChina had overtaken it last November, but has since lost half its value in China’s stock market decline. Today, PC is worth $453bn, versus EM’s $455bn.

China’s stock market has lost 25% so far this year. But PC has been particularly badly hit by its inability to raise product prices to compensate for higher oil costs. Its refineries are losing $54m a week as a result. With inflation at a record high of 8.7%, the government is determined to insulate Chinese consumers from the impact of $100/bbl oil.

In turn, this means demand is not being restrained by higher market prices, with all oil product prices frozen last January. The same is true in many other emerging countries, and in the OPEC countries. This means the West is facing the bulk of the adjustment process, which is bad news for those petchem producers without access to advantaged feedstocks.

Readers will know that I am a great admirer of Gillian Tett’s analyses of banking issues in the Financial Times. Today, she has another thought-provoking article, this time on the emergence of Iceland as ‘the world’s first country run like a hedge fund’. The article is worth reading in itself, but also for the question that it raises in conclusion. This is whether the leverage used in recent years by some banks now means that they are ‘not just too big to fail, but also too big to rescue’?

China is well worth watching at the moment. Quietly, away from the headlines, the Shanghai stock exchange has been collapsing. It is now down 44% since its October peak, and fell over 5% on Wednesday.

This matters to the chemical industry for two reasons:

• The immediate cause of Wednesday’s fall was news that Sinopec and PetroChina lost money in January and February. Their shares fell over 8% as a result. This shows the level of ‘subsidy’ now being offered to Chinese consumers following the government’s decision to freeze oil product prices in January. It turn, this subsidy delays any rebalancing of demand (as I noted on Wednesday), putting more pressure on western consumers.

• The collapse itself indicates that the Chinese ‘growth story’ may be about to take a break. The government has been raising interest rates very steadily, because of worries about ‘over-heating’ in the economy, and rising inflation. The stock market is forecasting that these measures will work, and that we may well see a major slowdown after the Olympics. This would be extremely serious as China was the powerhouse behind the recent boom in global chemical demand.

Of course, stock market collapses do not always lead to economic downturns. But they are often linked. The establishment of contingency plans for dealing with a global slowdown is fast becoming an urgent priority for chemical industry managements.

The US Fed’s decision to keep cutting interest rates is causing a major change in Asian investment behaviour. This will slow world economic growth quite significantly, and is bad news for chemical industry sales. It also means that the informal Bretton Woods II system of currency management has broken down.

The IMF now sees a 25% chance of a world recession this year, in which global growth would fall below 3%. Its base forecast is just 3.7%, compared to 5.2% before the credit crunch began. Sales growth for most chemicals is tied to GDP growth, so companies should expect volumes to come under pressure as global growth slows.

Car sales are of major importance to the chemical industry. The ACC calculates each new car uses $2441 worth of chemistry. The declines reported below for March and Q1 do not, therefore, make pretty reading.

March Q1
GM -13% -11%
Toyota -3% -4%
Ford -14% -9%
Chrysler -19% -16%

Even more discouraging is that none of the main auto manufacturers expect to see any pick-up in sales in the near future. Ford, for example, described the environment as being ‘very challenging’ and said their strategy was to focus on ‘being profitable at lower volume’.

There are also indications that the current downturn has spread from individuals to the wider economy, with Chrysler referring to an ‘industry-wide slowdown in large pick-up truck’ sales.

‘The sharp drop in housing starts and the developing credit crisis will flow into the cracker business’, according to Shell Chemical’s CEO Stacy Methvin. She added that ‘the housing crisis is more far-reaching than anyone anticipated’.

Similarly, BASF is now more cautious about the potential impact of the US recession on its petchem business. Peter Cella, VP petchems N America, told ICIS news that the ‘impact thus far has not filtered down to demand for our products (but) it could be coming. There could be a delayed effect three, six, nine months out that we’re just not seeing yet.’

The ACC’s weekly report also notes that JP Morgan’s global Manufacturing Index has slipped to its lowest level since May 2003, as America’s recession impacts the rest of the world. As the ACC comment, ‘so much for decoupling!’

If you would like to read my article in this week’s ICB, on the importance of contingency planning, please click this link

Paul Tucker of the Bank of England has consistently warned about the dangers posed by the credit crunch to the global economy. Back in December, he identified the key issue as being that central bankers ‘must try to avoid a vicious circle in which tighter liquidity conditions, lower asset values, impaired capital resources, reduced credit supply, and slower aggregate demand feed back on each other’. He also highlighted ‘monetary policy, liquidity policy, and regulatory capital policy as being amongst the instruments the authorities would need to use’.

In a new speech, he now highlights the fact that major stresses remain in the global financial system. He also warns that ‘in the US at least, evidence of a feedback loop is apparent’. Many senior chemical industry executives accept that the US is in recession, but expect it to be fairly short-lived. Unfortunately, this hope may prove too optimistic, if Tucker’s analysis is correct.

Last week the IMF warned there was a 25% chance of a global recession in 2008. Today, it said that the ‘crisis (was) creating serious macroeconomic feedback effects’ and could have ‘profound financial system and macroeconomic implications’.

We normally expect central bankers to weigh their words carefully. But now the IMF has decided to throw caution to the winds in an effort to get its core message across as clearly as possible. Challenging those who believe the crisis is already history, it emphasised that:

There is an extraordinary main feature in this week’s Barron’s, the leading US investment magazine.

This analyses the dramatic 391 point rally in the Dow Jones Industrials Index on 1 April. It describes this as ‘a spectacular exercise in the absurd’, and claims that the root cause was an April Fools spoof sent out that morning by a very prominent bearish commentator.

Doug Kass (known as the Bear who Never Sleeps) sent out an April Fools note in which he suggested the Dow would soon hit 56,000, after a 26% rise in 2008. He also joked that foreign buyers would now rush to buy up foreclosed US properties, oil prices were about to fall 50%, and that there would be no US recession. Barron's claims that these views were picked up by many foreign news media (who probably did not understand the April Fools concept), as well as hundreds of ‘investment websites’.

Was this really the cause of the rally? Who knows? But for Barron's to write about it so prominently suggests that they are convinced.

I am currently lucky enough to be visiting Asia every month. This also gives me a chance to ‘check the temperature’ as regards people’s outlook on the economy. And I think its fair to say that the mood has moved from optimism to caution. Good news is tempered by its potential downside.

The weekend’s finance minister meeting in Washington DC seems to have been quite different from its predecessors. Not only did they apparently have an ‘informal brainstorming session’ at one point, but they also found themselves confronted with two major and on-going crises:

• We have to ‘put food into hungry mouths’ commented Bob Zoellick, President of the World Bank. He added that “throughout the weekend we have heard again and again from ministers in developing countries and emerging economies that this is a priority issue.”
• At the same time, the rich countries wanted to focus on the global credit crisis. According to the New York Times, some Western finance ministers ‘appeared to be self-conscious about how much of the attention at the meeting has focused on the global credit crisis, while there was less focus on the problem of feeding the world’s poor’.

I remarked back in July that central bankers were in danger of ‘fighting their last war, rather than preparing for the next one’. And I questioned ‘their continued reluctance to recognise that higher food and energy prices are here to stay’. Equally, in a letter to the Financial Times in September, I suggested that the scale of the subprime crisis was much greater than generally accepted, and that the sums of money required to stabilise the situation would require “‘a buyer of last resort’, such as the Federal government, to emerge".

The problem is the slowness with which central bankers are waking up to these seemingly obvious truths. For this reason, one must applaud Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the new IMF MD, for pointing out the risks of further delay, even at the risk of seem to over-dramatise. He noted that ‘the food crisis posed questions about the survivability of democracy and political regimes…(and) sometimes those questions lead to war’.

Russia is the world’s 2nd largest oil producer. And it has been the main source of increased crude production in recent years. Its output rose 58% between 1999-2006, from 6.2mbd to 9.8mbd. Now Lukoil’s VP, Leonid Fedun, has told the Financial Times that he thinks 2007 output will be ‘the highest he will see in his lifetime’. He also believes that Russian oil production may now follow the sharp declines seen in the North Sea and Mexico.

UK readers, and others invested in the outlook for the UK housing market, may be particularly interested in the FT this weekend. It devotes 2 prime pages to a detailed analysis by Fitch, the ratings agency, of sub-prime and buy-to-let lending. As we know from the US, these are the most risky types of lending, as borrowers have little ‘skin in the game’ and can most easily walk away from their losses.

In an early blog last July, I marvelled at the contrast between the then upbeat nature of financial markets, and the gloom apparent elsewhere. I suggested that these two views of life couldn’t ‘continue to exist alongside each other for ever’, and suggested that whatever scenario came out on top would ‘have major implications for the chemical industry’. I added that I personally thought the Access deal for Lyondell (announced that week), would mark a market top, and forecast ‘storms ahead’.

Singapore is one of the global economic success stories of recent decades. Its sovereign wealth fund, GIC, is one of the world’s largest fund management companies, with assets of over $100bn. And GIC has already been active during the early stages of the credit crunch, investing $18bn since December in supporting cash-calls from Citigroup and UBS.

GIC's views on the outlook for the Asian/world economy are therefore of great interest to the chemical industry. Unfortunately, the message is not the one that we would wish to hear. Speaking today to its 500 employees, deputy chairman Tony Tan warned that `We could be facing a recession which is longer, deeper and wider than any recession that we have encountered in the last 30 years'.

He added that ‘as banks continue to deleverage, cutting down on their lending activities and causing contraction in credit supply, the prospects for the U.S. economy and possibly even the world economy are fraught with considerable downside risks.’

ICIS has just announced its annual Innovation Awards for the chemical industry. Perhaps ICIS might now consider establishing a separate award for central bankers? A rush of new lending facilities seems to be on the way, as they try to find new ways to unblock the pipes that allow money to flow between banks.

Financial markets have been buoyant in recent weeks, as I noted recently. But this is at odds with actual newsflow. The chart above, from Kevin Swift’s excellent weekly report for the American Chemistry Council, highlights once again the dire state of US housing.

March should be a buoyant month for house sales. Yet existing home sales fell 2% versus February, and were 19% down versus March last year. New home sales were even worse, down 8.5% versus February and a massive 37% versus last year. Inventories also rose sharply. There is now a 9.9 month supply of existing homes, due to a growing number of foreclosures. Inventory of new homes is now at a 30 year high of 11 months.

Housing is of critical importance to chemical industry sales. In spite of the optimism at NPRA, this data signals that there seems little chance of any meaningful improvement in US housing this year. US manufacturers will continue to have to rely on exports, and the weaker US$, to help them compensate for slow domestic markets.

Ineos’ 200,000bpd Grangemouth refinery in Scotland is on strike today and tomorrow, over a pension dispute. This will presumably cost the workers 2 days pay. The costs for INEOS and the UK are enormous in comparison. BP, for example, has had to shut down a pipeline that carries 40% of the UK’s oil production, because it is powered from Grangemouth. Bloomberg suggests that N Sea producers alone might lose £50m/day whilst the refinery is shut.

INEOS, of course, will also lose. The refinery and associated petchem plants had to be shut down last week, before the strike started. And the company estimates that it may take up to 3 weeks for full supplies to be restored. Some financial analysts have suggested the overall cost could amount to $60m. In addition, of course, there is all the disruption caused to INEOS customers, and other parts of the industry.

The strike also creates political risk for INEOS, given the potential for it to disrupt gasoline and fuel supplies across Scotland, where it is the only refinery. This is an uncomfortable position for any company, and one that will not be helped by the coincidental publication today of the UK’s annual Rich List in the Sunday Times. This ‘sharply’ cuts INEOS’ value to £2.5bn as a result of its ‘hefty borrowings, an economic slowdown and more competition from the Middle East’. Even so, according to the Sunday Times, Jim Ratcliffe, INEOS’ owner is still in 25th place and worth £2.3bn, more than double the Times’ estimate of his worth in 2006.

Even after the plants are back online, there is no guarantee that further strikes will not occur, as the pension issue looks unlikely to disappear quickly. Whilst an interesting new note from Goldman Sachs, published before the strike was called, suggests that INEOS’ value may continue to ‘underperform over the next 12 months’. Goldman base their view on the fact that ‘Ineos has not reduced leverage ahead of the coming cyclical trough, during which we think it will be among the most highly levered commodity chemical companies.’

OPEC used to believe that its fortunes were tied to the health of the global economy. But as I noted last month, its current policy is more reminiscent of ‘the difficult times of 1973/4 and 1979/80’.

The evidence for this statement is mounting. Saudi Oil Minister, Ali Naimi, said recently that the Kingdom has ‘no plans’ for further expansion of oil supply beyond 2009. This means that current capacity will peak at 12.5mbd. From a petchem viewpoint, it also means there will be no more ethane availability, beyond current allocations, as Saudi ethane is all associated gas.

Further evidence comes from King Abdullah himself. He was reported by the official Saudi news agency as saying "I keep no secret from you that, when there were some new finds, I told them 'No, leave it in the ground, with grace from God, our children need it'." This follows the historic rebuff by the King of President Bush’s personal appeal in February to increase oil production.

This week, OPEC’s President Chakib Khelil went still further. He told the Financial Times that oil prices ‘are high due to the recession in the United States and the economic crisis, which has touched several countries, a situation that has an effect on the value of the dollar. Each time the dollar falls 1 per cent, the price of the barrel rises by $4 and of course vice versa’.

The chemical industry is already struggling to pass through current oil prices, which are increasingly looking like a ‘bridge too far’. Many still hope that they will soon fall back to the $70/bbl that was the common budget assumption. I suggested back in October that this assumption was ‘very optimistic’. Now Khelil is warning that ‘oil prices could hit $200/bbl’.

Back in August, as the credit crisis began, I tried to capture the heart of the issues it raised in a few quotes. Many people now believe that it is coming to an end. I am not so sure, and fear it may, in fact, be simply moving from Wall Street to Main Street. If it does, the following quotes may provide a guide as to where we are now, what may happen next, and why we are in this mess:

'As real estate prices plunge, so does the ability of homeowners to borrow against the value of their homes, crimping a major artery of spending. As banks grow tighter with their dollars in a period of uncertainty, families are running up against credit limits, forcing many to live within their incomes. And as companies lay off employees and cut working hours, paychecks are effectively shrinking.' New York Times

'Government efforts should focus on helping the housing market reach equilibrium without overshooting. This can be done only through widespread restructuring of unaffordable mortgages into affordable ones. However, it is questionable whether government programmes can, or should, help borrowers who view home ownership as a leveraged investment. Solutions should focus on those with a long-term commitment to remaining in their homes and paying their mortgages if they had an affordable payment. Sheila Bair, Chairman, US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

`Investment banks leapt into commercial banking without the deposit base, while commercial banks went into investment banking without knowing risk management, and this is where we end up.' Brad Hintz, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co

'Wall Street's money-making machine is broken, and efforts to repair it after the biggest losses in history are likely to undermine profits for years to come'. Bloomberg

'A friend, who is a teacher, lamented to me recently: "For years we have been told that bankers were paid so much because you were cleverer than the rest of us. Now it turns out you were not clever at all and we are all suffering for your stupidity."'Abigail Hofman, former investment banker

Archie Norman is one of the most successful CEO’s of recent years. When he joined ASDA in 1991, it was a struggling, nearly bankrupt, UK food retailer. 9 years later, it was sold to Wal-Mart, after he had transformed it. Shareholders benefited from an 8-fold increase in the share price over the period, whilst Norman earned just £300k ($600k) a year.

Looking back on the experience, Norman does not think he was treated unfairly. In an interview today with the FT, he comments:

• ‘It has never occurred to me that money would have any bearing on my pace of work. I don’t work harder or less hard depending on the amount of money I earn. You are only as successful as your last challenge. I regard the things I have done in my career as a preparation for the next project’.
• His tip for successful management is also refreshing. ‘You have to be humble. You have to be prepared to listen to people whether they are cleaning the floor or in management’.

Anthony Bolton’s investment column this weekend contains another nugget of wisdom. Coincidentally, it is linked with Archie Norman’s ‘tip for management’ which I quote below.

Bolton is the UK’s most successful fund manager. And he certainly shares Norman’s sense about the need to be humble. In fact, he goes even further, commenting that in his experience, ‘On average, you will be wrong at least two times out of five – half the time because an investment thesis proves to be incorrect, and half the time because something changes’.

He goes on to list some of the main things that can change. All of them will be familiar to commercial people in the chemical industry: ‘movement in interest rates or currencies; a change at the industry level – such as increased competition or new legislation; a new product fails to work as well as expected; a price war breaks out in a key market’.

Bolton’s caution seems particularly sensible today. As I commented in ICB last month, contingency planning has gone out of fashion in recent years. But given the current high level of uncertainty in the world economy, focused on the issues that Bolton highlights, it probably needs to assume a high priority in any CEO’s agenda.

After a while, large numbers lose their power to shock. So Bloomberg and the FT have performed a service this week by reminding us of the scale of losses in the financial sector. They calculate that so far, US and European banks have had to raise $216.9bn of new capital. And, of course, whilst this phase of the current credit crunch is now coming to an end, the IMF estimates the total bill will be close to $1000bn.

As Warren Buffett told his Annual Meeting this weekend, ‘the worst of the crisis in Wall Street is over. In terms of people with individual mortgages, there’s a lot of pain left to come’. This warning adds to my caution over the outlook for the chemical industry.

I noted back in February that China is no longer exporting price deflation, and is instead causing global prices for commodities and manufactured goods to rise. A reader has now kindly sent me an interesting report from Credit Suisse, commenting on the potential inflationary impact of new labour laws in China. This is particularly important for the chemical industry, given the volume of foreign investment that has taken place in China.

It features the above chart, showing how wages have increased by 70% since 2004. And its analysis claims that the new Labour Contract Law, in operation since January, will increase manufacturing costs by a further 15%-20%. CS argue that this under-reported measure raises China’s labour rights to international standards, requiring extra pay for overtime, employer contributions to social and pension funds, and severance pay.

CS note that the new law is part of a package of measures aimed at stimulating domestic demand and reducing export-dependency. VAT export rebates were lowered three times in 2007, whilst corporate tax rates for Foreign Direct Investors are being raised from 15% to 25%. They argue that as well as increasing global inflation, the new measures ‘will also affect margins of many listed foreign companies using China as a production base’.

Please contact me at phodges@internationalechem.com if you would like a copy of the report.

Spare a thought for the plight of the world’s investment bankers. According to the Financial Times, some minor cutbacks are finally taking place in the extravagant lifestyle to which they have come accustomed:

• UBS, having lost $11bn in Q1, has now told its analysts to fly economy on short-haul flights.
• Merrill Lynch bankers have to work an extra 30 minutes before they are entitled to a taxi ride home after work.
• Goldman Sachs employees no longer have access to free bottled water

Deutsche Bank has gone one further, according to Der Spiegel, and will no longer ‘approve any adult entertainment’ such as hotel porn channels.

A month ago, I suggested that oil prices 'seem set to move higher in the short-term, with $125/bbl now being talked as a target'. Readers were hopefully not too surprised, therefore, to see prices for Brent and WTI close at this level on Friday night.

One of my longer-term forecasts also seems to be coming true. Back in October, I was a rather lonely voice when I suggested that the 'consensus (chemical company) forecast is very optimistic...expecting oil will remain at $70/bbl, that debt market problems will be contained, and that petchem margins will remain at 2007 levels'.

The chemical industry moves a lot of product by ship. Recent rises in freight rates have therefore had a major impact on costs for producers and consumers. But there was always the thought that rates would soon decline, once shipbuilders began delivering all the new ships on order.

But now Bloomberg is suggesting that 10% of these orders have already been cancelled due to the credit crunch. 'A year ago, banks would finance as much as 80% of an order, with 12- to -15- year loans,' according to Fortis Bank. 'Now, financing usually doesn't exceed 65%, and terms are 10 years or less'.

And the squeeze is not just affecting ship-buyers, but also those planning to build new shipyards. 20% of current orders are scheduled to be built by Chinese shipyards that are themselves not yet in operation. Equally, there are major delays on critical parts - the waiting time for main engines is now 4 years, and even for diesel generator is 2 years.

Supply chain managers must be starting to wonder whether globalisation and outsourcing will remain viable tools for cost-reduction.

Headline interest rates are set by central banks. But the ones that we actually pay, as consumers or companies, are set by the banks themselves. And most of these are based on LIBOR - the London Inter-Bank Offer Rate - which is the main benchmark for $347 trillion of borrowing around the world. Now it seems the LIBOR rate is likely to rise by 30 May.

The background to this is slightly complex (details below), but the implications are enormous. Lending rates for 6 million US homeowners are likely to rise as a result, for example. Today the LIBOR system was discussed in the UK Parliament, and it seems a new system is likely to emerge by 30 May. Based on the evidence so far, this could increase actual lending rates quite significantly, by up to 0.30%.

Yesterday the UK public had a rare view of what the government really thinks about future house price trends. Photographers snapped Housing Minister Caroline Flint arriving for a Cabinet meeting. And then journalists went to work on reading the notes in her hand.

Contrary to official statements, it seems that the government expects 'sizeable falls in prices later this year - at best down 5 - 10% year-on-year' (my italics). Her notes went to add that 'we can't know how bad it will get'. I noted last month that the UK was 'at risk of a US-style housing slump', and it now seems that the UK government shares my view. This is clearly not good news for future chemical sales, as housing is such a major source of demand.

Every 3 months, the Bank of England publishes its Inflation Report. This is packed with useful charts and commentary on just about every aspect of the world economy. It also normally includes the Bank's own indicator of where UK house prices are headed. This is based on surveys by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, and figures from the main lenders. But this quarter, the chart did not appear.

Oil markets could become more volatile again, on news today that Saudi is to pump an extra 3000kbd of oil in June. Other Gulf States including Kuwait and UAE may follow its lead.

For years, former US Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said that it was impossible to recognise an 'asset bubble' until after it had burst. Thus the dot-com bubble, and the US housing bubble, were able to grow without central bank interference.

Now however, Fed Governor Frederic Mishkin has broken ranks and provided this detailed description of how a 'bubble' develops:

Increases in Russian oil supply have played a major role in balancing world oil markets, at a time when other non-OPEC sources such as the N Sea have been declining. Production rose from 6.2mbd in 1999 to 9.6mbd by 2006. But as I noted last month, there are signs it may now have peaked.

The reason for this is perhaps to be found in a comment by Leonid Filimonov, former USSR Oil Minister, in this month's 'Petroleum Review' . He said that from 1998, Russian oil "companies were focusing on the 'easy fields', racking up tremendous production gains, leaving only the 'difficult fields' for the future".

More recently, under Putin, Russia has become much more professional in its marketing of crude. According to the Financial Times, he has re-established central control of Russian crude sales by supporting the growth of Gunvor, a Geneva based trading house now responsible for an estimated $70bn worth of Russian oil sales this year. This has helped to support oil prices, by comparison with the previous free-for-all, and is credited with helping to 'reduce the discount between Russian Urals and western Brent'.

European isomer players may recognise some of the names involved in Gunvor, as it owes its origins to the Kirishi refinery, a regular PX/OX producer for many years. Kirishi is, of course, close to St Petersburg, where Putin was formerly Mayor. And according to the FT, the relationship is still maintained via a common interest in judo, with Putin and Gunvor boss Gennady Timchenko both members of Moscow's Yavara Neva club.

Chemical companies are still getting used to the idea that crude is trading above $100/bbl. For many of them, this was a complete shock, as many had believed the consensus view and budgeted for a $70/bbl average in 2008. Now, however, worse news is in prospect as forward prices have been racing away this week. 2016 oil contracts yesterday traded just under $140/bbl for the first time.

The picture above shows the global reference chart from the International Energy Agency (IEA). They expect oil demand to continue to increase, driven by growth in China, India and other emerging economies. Higher oil prices don't affect this growth, as countries such as China have imposed price freezes on oil products, as I noted back in January. Equally, OPEC countries also subsidise oil prices, with many selling gasoline at 10c/litre. As a result, last week's IEA forecast is for demand in these countries to grow 4.9% this year.

I am in Tallinn, Estonia, where the Petrochemicals Feedstocks Association has kindly invited me to talk about 'Feedstocks for Profit', our forthcoming Study on feedstocks supply and demand. Much discussion, as you wouild expect amongst oil and naphtha traders, centred around the potential for $200/bbl oil. None of them thought it unlikely, and many thought it inevitable.

This led to thoughts about the changes that might take place in behaviour if this level was reached. Walking around Tallinn perhaps provides some clues. At this time of year, it is light till nearly midnight, and local people like to sit outside - even though a cold wind blows from the Baltic Sea. But not for them are the comforts of gas-fired patio heaters. Instead, as you can see from my photo, local bars and restaurants provide plenty of home-made blankets.

There are some close parallels between the airline and chemical industries. Both are very capital intensive, use oil as a key raw material, and are heavily dependent on operating rates as a driver of profitability. Therefore one probably needs to pay close attention to news that American, historically the strongest US airline, has announced it is 'retiring' jets in response to rising fuel prices. Whilst British Airways has warned that its entire operating profit for this year might be wiped out.

Recent statements from senior airline executives also have an ominous tone to them for chemical industry managers. Jean-Cyril Spinetta, CEO of Air France-KLM has said 'air fares would have to rise' and 'admitted the increases could hit demand for air travel'. Willie Walsh of BA had an even bleaker outlook, commenting that 'we're going to see people fail'.

The excellent 'ICIS Weekly Margin Report - PE' is starting to tell a very sad story about polymer margins. The chart (above) shows that the ethylene margin, in yellow, has been falling steadily since the start of the year. The same is true for the HDPE margin, in blue. And the Report notes that if market conditions don't improve, then Q2 performance 'will see the weakest quarterly result since 2003'

The Report focuses on European markets, but its conclusions apply to all major regions. It calculates the average Q2 margin for integrated HDPE producers is currently €312/tonne, and for standalone producers it is just €61/tonne. It also calculates that margins for the month of May are now as bad as they were at the trough last December. And with feedstocks costs still rising, producers and consumers clearly face a most difficult position next month.

Update, 27 May. The latest Report, just published, shows that the current margin for integrated HDPE producers is now just €118/t, as naphtha prices rose over 6% last week.

Sinopec is now losing 3000 yuan ($425) on every tonne of oil product sold, due to China's price freeze, according to Sinopec spokesman Chen Ge yesterday. And this is on top of official government subsidies paid to Sinopec, which rocketed to $1bn in April. This was more that the entire subsidy paid in 2007. And it will be higher still in May, as the government's subsidy was based on April's $98.60/bbl purchase price.

The government has massive foreign exchange reserves, of course, and there are no signs that it is preparing to relax the price freeze. Sinopec Chairman, Su Shulin, told Sinopec's annual meeting yesterday that 'it is hard to say' when the government may allow diesel and gasoline prices to rise. In fact, the higher the price for crude, the more difficult it would be for the government to act - particularly with inflation already at a 12 year high, at over 8%. So demand will continue to grow unchecked by market forces.

This is bad news for petchem producers and consumers, who are already struggling to pass on current record feedstock levels.

Dow today announced that it is raising prices for 'all of its products by up to 20 percent - depending on their exposure to rising energy, feedstock and transportation costs - and will review all terms to all customers'. Dow CEO, Andrew Liveris, said that Dow's 'first quarter feedstock and energy bill leapt a staggering 42 percent year over year, and that trajectory has continued, with the cost of oil and natural gas climbing ever higher."

Liveris added that "the new level of hydrocarbons and energy costs is putting a strain on the entire value chain and is forcing difficult discussions with customers about resetting the value proposition for our products." Dow thus follows Rohm & Haas in taking extraordinary steps to try and mitigate current feedstock prices. The company estimates that its $8bn bill for energy and hydrocarbon-based costs in 2002 will rise to $32bn this year, if present trends continue.

As I commented back on 2 January, 'it would be a triumph of hope over experience to expect the 2007-8 surge (in oil prices) to be different' from those that one remembers from 1973-4 and 1979-80. Then, we did exactly as Dow are doing now, and raised prices as an act of desperation. I would like to believe that the next stage of the story will somehow be different this time from previous experience, but as I have been warning since the blog started last June, a major downturn in chemical demand looks increasingly likely.

For those who are interested, my New Year Outlook from 2 January is available via the January archives, and is also attached to this posting ....

Some minor relief may be at hand for hard-pressed cracker operators, particularly those in Asia. Sinopec announced today that it will reduce ethylene output by 65 KT in June (the equivalent of 1 cracker's output), in order to allow it to boost fuel production by 200 KT. This will be done by bringing forward planned cracker maintenance at Zhongyuan, Dongfang and Shanghai. The aim is to respond to government directives to ensure fuel supplies after last month's earthquake.

Balancing petchem and fuel needs seems to be becoming a recurring factor in China. I noted back in January that olefin imports had surged in late 2007, as the government stockpiled fuel in advance of the Olympics. 1 tonne of ethylene production equates to an extra 5 tonnes of diesel. But before we get too cheerful, we have to remember that there is a cloud to this particular silver lining. The International Energy Agency is now forecasting that China's 2008 oil demand may rise 4.7 percent to 7.9 mbd, which will help support today's already high energy prices.

The blog doesn't often comment on management issues. But one interesting article has caught my eye today. A major study reported in the Financial Times suggests that 'leadership teams were four times as important as leaders in the process of developing strategy'. And it quotes Lee Scott, Wal-Mart's CEO as saying that 'I don't run the company...as CEO, if you have to get up every morning and tell people what to do, then you've got the wrong people in the jobs'.

I think the chemical industry may soon find itself putting this insight to the test. As the economic downturn worsens, so it will show up those companies and Boards that are essentially 'one man bands'. Recent boom conditions have rewarded risk-taking, and it is no surprise that the idea of the 'CEO as hero' has developed in response. But in today's more uncertain world, the study suggests that leadership should be considered 'a team sport', where tasks are distributed 'far and wide' to the most appropriate people.

Yesterday's action in financial markets reminded me of the Bird/Fortune video (noted here in December), where they took a satirical look at the causes of the sub-prime debacle. Specifically, the question in the interview where Fortune describes Bird as a 'sophisticated investment banker, with his fingers right on the pulse'.

The moment that recalled this was after the opening bell on Wall Street, when the Dow was trading happily, so it seemed, above 12500. Then General Motors released its auto sales figures for May, and the market promptly collapsed nearly 200 points. One wondered why? I can't believe any chemical industry executive was surprised to see that GM sales were down 16% YTD, given that April had been down 17%, and that all the major companies had said the industry's slide was continuing.

It seems that all these 'sophisticated' investors had assumed that Father Christmas had been going to appear (presumably in the shape of the US Treasury tax rebates that were mailed in April), to single-handedly rescue the US auto industry? This would indeed have been a triumph of wish-fulfilment. For as every Western child knows, Father Christmas visits in December, and only if you've been good during the year.

In the meantime, the bad news for chemical sales is that the 2 key US market sectors, housing and autos, are continuing to get worse, not better. The second half of the year is shaping up to be very difficult indeed.

US economic conditions are 'ominous", and may worsen into 2009, according to Dow CEO, Andrew Liveris. "A month ago we might have said ... the US slowdown could be bottoming, but I don't think it is bottoming," Liveris said in response to analysts' questions at an investor conference in New York. He added that "I think we are in for a tough 2008 and maybe even a tougher 2009."

Central bankers had it easy over the past decade. Now they are going to have to earn their money. Inflation is rising rapidly, and growth rates are falling. But unfortunately, as I first noted back in March, they still seem to have differing ideas about what policies will best counter these twin challenges.

The US price for natural gas has risen faster than crude so far this year. It is already up almost 65%. Rising coal and oil prices have encouraged power generators to switch to gas, whilst lower Canadian exports and a tight global LNG market have helped to push prices higher. Increasing demand for ethanol will also require 1bn cu ft of extra gas supply, between 2008/9, according to Merrill Lynch. US producers can be forgiven for feeling battered, with their costs rising and the domestic market hit by lack of demand from the housing and auto sectors.

Every now and then, a few interesting quotes come along, which seem to recent summarise developments, and set the tone for the next few months. Recent days have been a good example of this process at work:

'The era of cheap energy is over, as oil production isn't rising fast enough to meet demand amid a lack of spending'. Tony Hayward, CEO, BP

'A public backlash against high (oil) prices in China could have an adverse impact throughout the world'. Zhang Guabao, China's delegate to the G8 Energy Ministers' meeting

'It is not clear if the rest of the world is going to continue to fund the US current account deficit at current levels of exchange rates'. Malcolm Knight GM, Bank of International Settlements (the central bankers bank)

'The banking system might simply revert to the role of a utility, which is the way things were before the great deregulatory tide began in the 1970's'. John Plender, senior financial columnist, Financial Times.

The blog usually focuses on news items and analysis. But just occasionally, anecdotal evidence seems worth reporting. My colleague, John Keeley, is well known to many readers from his days at Shell Chemicals, as well as more recently with IeC. Just back from chairing the ICIS Phenol and Acetone Conference in Budapest, he reports that he 'had never seen American colleagues so downbeat in his 40 years in the industry'. John is by nature one of the world's great optimists, so his concern is particularly powerful.

The latest leading indicators from the OECD (shown in red above) are now diverging quite strongly from actual Industrial Production performance (shown in blue). The chart is taken for the latest American Chemistry Council (ACC) weekly report, and the ACC comment that the indicators should anticipate changes in 'global industrial activity' and 'provide early signals of turning points (peaks and troughs)'. The ACC adds that they are also 'good indicators for basic and specialty chemicals, 85% of which are sold to the industrial sector'.

The puzzle is the divergence that seems to have opened up since 2005. Before then, actual industrial production seemed to track the indicators very well, with a suitable lag. Perhaps the availability of cheap credit between 2005-7 allowed a higher level of production than normal? Whatever the cause, the ACC is not optimistic that this divergence will continue, commenting that 'the data suggests that global industrial production will further slow'.

I noted earlier this year that China was now exporting inflation, rather than the deflation of the past decade. Working in Asia again this week, one can see a major change in attitudes is now underway. Rising food and energy prices are having an enormous impact, and Asian governments are clearly nervous about the potential for greater political unrest.

Therefore many have instead introduced subsidies of one type or another. In addition, central banks have allowed real interest rates in every major country to turn negative. For example, China's real borrowing rate is now -1.03%, as inflation is higher than the benchmark interest rate. Across the region, rates average 6.75%, well below average inflation of 7.5%.

Governments fear that raising benchmark interest rates would push up currency values, and damage exports. But many are still keen to cool their domestic economies. So they use other levers instead. This week, for example, China raised the deposit rates for banks to 17.5%, forcing banks to cut back on loans to companies and individuals. India followed, raising its rate to 8%, and Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines and Pakistan also raised rates.

The result was a major fall in stock markets. China's benchmark index, the CSI, plunged 15%, the biggest fall on record, and is now down 44% for the year. Benchmark Asian indexes also fell around 7% on the week. And the Chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, Stephen Roach, warned that the world was 'in denial' about the likelihood that Asia would now start to export 'stagflation' (stagnant growth, plus inflation). Stagflation last occured in the 1970's. This time, he argued, 'it will be made in Asia'.

Chemical companies, faced with rising feedstock costs and the prospect of lower volumes, might well argue that it has already happened.

There seems to be remarkably little information about Saudi Arabia's planned oil 'summit' next Sunday in Jeddah. The first news of it seemed to be released rather informally, via a 'junior official' at the Oil Ministry. Since then, various rumours have been reported, but nothing very substantive. All we seem to know for certain at the moment is that King Abdullah told the UN Secretary General over the weekend that he thinks oil prices are 'abnormally high'.

In the past, a clear Saudi view such as this would be a prelude to a major decrease in price. But at the moment, there seems little clarity as to what, if anything, the King might be planning. And the main media have differing views on the key short-term issue - the potential for extra Saudi production:

• Bloomberg reports that Saudi Aramco will start pumping an extra 500kbpd from the new Khursaniyah field 'next month'
• The Financial Times, however, only suggests this will start 'soon'.
• The Wall Street Journal takes a different line altogether, suggesting there might not be any additional net production increase at all, as 'the plan for that field was to ramp up its production slowly, while using the new stream to allow some of the country's older fields to rest'.

It looks as though we may have to wait till next weekend to find out what King Abdullah is really hoping to achieve from his summit.

Monday, Monday, can't trust that day
Monday, Monday, sometimes it just turns out that way
Oh Monday morning, you gave me no warning of what was to be

These 'Mamas and Papas' lyrics certainly sum up Monday this week:

• Oil prices went to another record high, just under $140/bbl, as traders worried about the falling US$ and the risk that an attack on Iran might not be far away
• A leading US economist suggested that the next 18 months might parallel the 1988-92 US real estate crisis, 'when more than 1000 banks and 1000 thrifts failed'.
• ICIS' Nigel Davis highlighted the suggestion from Citigroup analysts that the chemicals industry was also'heading for crisis' due to its inability to pass through recent feedstock cost increases

Linda Naylor, ICIS's polymers guru, has just written a market analysis that took me straight back to 1980. She described how current feedstock prices meant that 'many of Europe's cracker operators were losing money', and noted that Dow was being 'very firm' in trying to recoup these losses via higher polymer prices. However, her research suggested that other sellers were showing more 'flexibility' in their negotiations. And she quoted one buyer who forecast that 'Dow will lose an awful lot of volume'.

In 1980, I was a young sales rep, working for one of the then world majors (ICI). And I went through the same experience that Dow is now suffering. At the start of Q2, we were told to 'hold the line' on pricing, in order to recapture margin caused by rising crude prices. (Does this begin to sound familiar?). Oil prices had moved above $30/bbl, or to around $95/bbl in today's money. Competitors, of course, undercut us. By the end of the quarter, we had lost around 20% of our volume - which we had to reclaim in Q3 by lowering prices still further.

John McCain, Republican Presidential candidate, is making waves in the US political scene with his suggestion that the ban on offshore drilling for oil might need to be lifted. Barron's, however, notes rather ironically that in fact, drilling is already underway off the Florida coast. It points out that 'Cuba is allowing Chinese energy companies to drill for oil and gas in the Gulf, less than 90 miles (145km) from Florida'.

A first visit to Cambodia. I'm here en route to our Asian Conference in Bangkok, and the picture shows the famous line of Buddhas at Angkor Wat. But the main topic of conversation when talking to local people is the high cost of food and energy. With wages averaging $30 - $35 a week, these costs now account for up to 65% of income. Other expenses, such as schooling and healthcare, have to be cut back if people are to survive. This is not good for the future of the country, which risks slipping backwards in the development stakes as a result.

I've read several reports on the outcome of the Jeddah oil 'summit', and still feel no wiser than last week:

The US has now confirmed what oil traders have been suspecting - that Israel is preparing for a bombing raid on Iran's alleged nuclear facilities. According to Bloomberg and the New York Times, around 100 Israeli aircraft took part in a full-scale training exercise in early June. The distance it involved, 900 miles, is apparently 'about the same distance between Israel and Iran's uranium enrichment plant at Natanz'.

Higher oil prices will change the way that Procter & Gamble operates its supply chain. The world's largest consumer products company describes its current operations as being 'upside down'. 'They were implemented in the 1980s and 1990s, when oil was 10 bucks a barrel', according to Keith Harrison, P&G's head of global supply.

Oil prices at $140/bbl caused plenty of debate in Bangkok this week at our Asian conference (jointly organised with ICIS). Delegates also heard from Reliance's President of Fibre Intermediates, Rajen Udeshi, on the potential for a new commodities 'Super Cycle' to be underway.

Discussing the above chart, he pointed out that the industrialisation of China and India might well cause the same disruption as the industrialisation of Europe and the USA in previous centuries. 'China and India have a combined population of 2.1bn, which is one third of the world population', he added. 'That is a lot of buying power'.

Alexei Miller, CEO of Gazprom, believes 'that OPEC doesn't have any real influence on the global oil market nowadays'. Interviewed by the Financial Times, he claimed that 'not a single decision has been passed of late that would really influence the global oil market'. And he repeated his suggestion that oil could reach $250/bbl, noting that 'the last 10 years saw Chinese energy consumption almost double and India's grow over 1.5-fold'.

Three major themes (ICIS Jun08.pdf) emerged from our Asian Conference last week, co-organised with ICIS:

• Change. The world is clearly changing very rapidly. Feedstock prices are rising. At the same time, major new capacity is starting to come on-stream in the Middle East, and in Asia.
• Complexity. There are many more issues to understand. Feedstock costs are being affected by geo-politics, gasoline and biofuels. Whilst economic growth is also looking much weaker.
• Challenge. Over the past decade, companies have focused on optimisation within their own chosen 'silos'. This has been a very successful strategy, but it may not be sufficient for the future.

'Collapse' is not a word that should be used lightly in business. But there is no other way to describe June's US auto sales figures:

Its now a year since the blog started. Since then, 213 postings have appeared. It is now read in 72 countries and 620 cities (shown above). Most encouragingly, readership continues to steadily increase. Since January, it has risen a further 301%.

The blog's aim is to identify 'the influences that may shape the chemical industry over the next 12 - 18 months', and to 'develop useful insights into the key factors that will drive the industry's future performance' . So a first birthday is a suitable moment to assess its success:

The central bankers' bank (the Bank for International Settlements) is not very impressed with its members' efforts over the past year. Readers may remember that the BIS Report last year explicitly warned of the problems that were about to occur in world financial markets. This year's Report expresses its disappointment about what central banks did in response:

European refining margins are falling, as the US's need for gasoline imports reduces. Margins have reached a 4 year low of minus $6.21/bbl, according to Bloomberg. And the problem is likely to get worse, as the US moves towards greater self-sufficiency in gasoline via refinery expansions and increased biofuels usage.

This trend could have important implications for European petchem producers, who are currently suffering from an inability to pass through today's high naphtha prices.

I'm rather surprised my fellow blogger Barbara has missed this story. Still, it shows us commercial types have a life, too.

Bloomberg reports that the economic downturn has caused major cuts in the prices of 'shoes, bags and dresses' during the current Paris fashion sales. France's biggest department stores, Au Printemps and Galeries Lafayette are offering discounts of 50% to attract shoppers. Whilst smaller stores including Jonak and Maje have cut prices by 70%.

The reason, of course, is the slowing economy, and declining consumer confidence. But as the photo shows, the Grand Sale has brought the shoppers back after a very weak June. Bargains apparently include dress heels with silver straps selling for €49, down from €149.99. I'm not sure what they are, but it sounds like a bargain.

Dow's potential interest in Rohm & Haas had been much rumoured since December, when it announced the petchem/polymer JV with Kuwait's PIC. That deal has yet to close, but further evidence of the growing link with Kuwait comes with the news that the Kuwait Investment Authority will invest $1bn as part of Dow's financing for yesterday's $18.8bn purchase of R&H.

Oil price movements are now dominated by the Iranian nuclear issue.

Last month, they jumped $10/bbl to $146/bbl as news leaked of Israel's training exercise against Iran's nuclear sites. I've since talked to someone who was on holiday in Southern Greece at the time, and he says it was an amazing sight - the sky was apparently filled with planes.

Early last week, prices fell $10/bbl as news agencies headlined Iran's leader saying 'There won't be war'. But his actual comments made it clear that he wasn't backing down. Rather, he was arguing that the US/Israel were bluffing, and calling the threat of an attack a 'joke'.

And then prices rose $10/bbl again. First, Iran fired missiles which it claimed could reach Israel. Then the Jerusalem Post carried reports from the Iraqi Defense Ministry that the Israeli air force had been using US bases in Iraq in further training exercises.

Last September, I wrote to the Financial Times on the subject of the US sub-prime disaster. At a time when many banking commentators were trying to minimise the problems, I suggested that 'a "buyer of last resort", such as the Federal government, would probably need to emerge if this situation is to be stabilised'.

Yesterday, 10 months later, the government took a major step in this direction with its emergency measures to support Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Between them, these two lenders guarantee 47% of all US mortgages, worth over $5 trillion. That sum is equivalent to 10% of global GDP, or about the combined size of the French and UK economies.

Yesterday's US government data on gasoline consumption gives the clearest picture yet of what is happening to US demand. The data compares the 4 weeks covering the July 4 Independence Day weekend, with the same period last year. And it shows gasoline demand was down just 2.1%, even though oil prices have doubled since last year. Demand still averaged 9.3 mbd, about equal to Saudi Arabia's total oil exports. This tends to confirm the argument that US demand is relatively inelastic, in the absence of a major economic recession.

Andrew Sentance of the Bank of England has issued a very clear analysis of current oil and commodity price movements. It rejects the view that these have been primarily caused by speculators. Instead, it points to increasing demand, and lack of supply, as the main causes of today's higher prices. The slide above sums up his case, showing recent increases in non-OECD oil demand in light blue, the OECD increase in dark blue, and supply increases in purple.

I suggested at the weekend that the Iran issue had the potential to move oil prices by $50/bbl either way. Since then, prices have fallen $20/bbl to $130/bbl, on news that the USA and Iran will meet tomorrow for the first time in nearly 30 years. If they reach agreement on the nuclear issue, oil prices will almost certainly fall further, as the threat to exports via the Strait of Hormuz is removed. Alternatively, if diplomacy fails, any bombing by Israel of Iran could easily cause prices to soar to $200/bbl.

Maintaining price hedges against both outcomes therefore seems the right strategy for chemical companies, given this uncertainty. If prices do fall further, working capital will take a major hit, as stocks are revalued downwards. Current price initiatives will probably also collapse. Equally, if bombing does take place, and oil prices jump in response, it is most unlikely that these higher costs will be quickly recovered in product prices.

A new debate about increasing US energy security, by reducing gasoline dependence, may be getting underway. Leading the move is Andy Grove, the man who made Intel into the leading global chip company. His key phrase, and the title for his 1996 book, was 'Only the paranoid survive'. Now he is taking this approach into the energy sphere, commenting that the US may end up 'starving to death economically', if nothing is done to reduce US gasoline consumption.

Grove's focus is on developing electric cars that can cover 40 miles (65km) before switching to gasoline. He is calling for 10 US million vehicles to be converted within 4 years. And he already has some powerful backers, in the shape of the big Silicon Valley venture capital firms who helped power Intel to its current $38bn of sales.

The current downturn is different from anything that has occurred in the last 15 years. Policy makers are clearly worried. The UK's Finance Minister, Alistair Darling, told Bloomberg today that 'the effect of what has happened is going to be far more profound than people predicted at the start of the year'. He added that 'conditions have become much worse across the world'.

Noting that banks have already had to raise $324bn in new capital, Darling warned that `I don't think anyone would be wise to start speculating on how long the present difficulties will last. We are dealing with them here (in the UK), and other countries are dealing them as well. If you look at the problems the banks have had, they have moved into a different phase and governments have to take account of that.'

I suppose when an industry has lost $400bn in a year, some sacrifices have to be made. In May, I documented how Deutsche Bank was no longer approving expense claims for 'adult entertainment'. Well, things have got worse since then, as the losses have continued to mount:

• Goldman staff have to contribute to repair costs for their Blackberries, if the damage is their fault
• UBS bankers in the US now fly economy if the flight is less than 5 hours
• Several banks are asking staff to use taxis rather than limousines

And the C-suite are also setting an example. After a record 4 consecutive quarters of losses, Merrill Lynch executives now have to 'seek clearance from the global head of investment banking' before using private jets.

Europe is the world's largest auto manufacturer, accounting for 32% of the global market. So news that European auto sales fell 8.3% last month, compared to 2007, is worrying. Italy's sales fell 20%, and were today described as 'disastrous' by CEO Sergio Marchionne, who announced that 4 of their 6 plants will shut for 3 weeks later this year. Fiat's truck plant will shut for 6 weeks, due to lack of demand. Spain was even worse, with sales down 31%. Whilst Irish sales halved.

The situation has echoes of how US auto sales began to fall away this time last year. Last August, I noted how the US majors were starting to report a fall in consumer confidence. Similarly ACEA, the European manufacturers association, is now warning of 'difficult economic circumstances' in its latest monthly report. The auto industry is a very important market for chemical sales. This new trend towards falling home market sales is therefore not good news for European chemical companies, already facing a difficult H2.

Germany is the powerhouse economy of Europe. Its also a late-cycle economy, relying more on engineering and equipment sales than consumer spending. So until recently, its growth has seemingly not been affected by the global slowdown. But Germany's Chancellor, Angela Merkel, indicated yesterday that a 'significant fall' was likely in economic growth next year.

Industrial production, a key indicator for the chemical industry, fell by 2.4% in May - the largest drop in a decade. And in a comment that will find echoes in many boardrooms, Merkel added that 'the economic context in which we are operating is certainly not getting any easier'. Her forecast that a 'clear economic slowdown appeared unavoidable' is rapidly becoming a consensus view.

There is little doubt that chemical growth is weakening. The above chart, taken from Kevin Swift's excellent weekly report for the American Chemistry Council, indicates that a serious downturn is underway.

I noted back in February that US banks were tightening lending standards into the housing sector. Now they are doing the same with business loans. The New York Times reports today that businesses around the country are finding it more difficult to borrow. As a result, companies that depend on bank financing are having to delay or cancel expansion plans.

The NYT reports one thriving company who called their bank for a routine loan to be told 'We're saying 'no' to almost everyone'. And their experience is not unique. In June, bank credit declined by an annualised pace of 6%, according to a Goldman Sachs analysis. This is a sharp turnaround from 2007, when credit was still growing at double-digit rates.

Back in February, one hoped that it would take 'months' rather than 'years' for domestic US chemical sales into housing and autos to recover. Now, with business loans being cut back as well as mortgages, one fears that it could indeed be years before a genuine recovery is underway.

When a leading banker says things look 'terrible', one know they must be really bad. Jamie Dimon is CEO of JP Morgan Chase, the only major US bank not to take write-downs on its housing loans to date. He described the US housing market as follows: 'We saw subprime go first, then you see home equity go and then you see prime go.' He then added, 'the prime looks terrible. We're sorry, but it looks terrible.'

'Prime' is comprised of loans made to high quality borrowers, who would normally have negligible default levels. These are people who have steady jobs at executive levels. But the latest Case-Shiller US house price index shows why Dimon was so downbeat. Compared to last year, US house prices are now:

• Down 16% on a national basis, and falling in every major US city
• Down nearly 30% in Miami, Los Angeles and Las Vegas

And it is likely that there is worse to come. Inventories of new and existing homes are still very high, even though the spring is usually the peak time for home sales. Last month, existing home inventory actually rose to 11.1 months.

Statisticians love re-writing economic history. And a notable example of this has occurred today. US government statisticians reported that the US economy actually declined by 0.2% at the end of last year. Whereas, 6 months ago, they reported it as having grown by 0.6%.

Few readers of this blog will be too surprised. Earlier this year, Warren Buffett and Martin Feldstein (the Harvard professor responsible for officially defining recession), were both quoted here as saying that they thought the US was already in recession during Q1.

BMW, the world's largest luxury car manufacturer, warned today that it is no longer immune from the global downturn:

'Business conditions for the automobile industry deteriorated sharply again in the second quarter due to further ongoing steep rises in oil and raw material prices, the weakness of the US dollar, the impact of the international financial crisis and a weaker US economy,' it told investors.

BMW is now planning to cut costs and reduce production. Both actions will have a major impact on chemical companies' sales and profit. Most worryingly, BMW Chairman Norbert Reithofer also believes '2009 will be another difficult year, full of challenges'.

Paul Ray's excellent ICIS PE margin report provides plenty of food for thought this week. The chart above shows that European LDPE prices (the red line) have moved up quite sharply since June. But almost all of this improvement has been captured by cracker operators. Margins for integrated players (in yellow) recovered quite nicely, but standalone producers (in blue) have seen only a slight improvement.

There seems to have been no response from Iran to the 2 week deadline set by the US and Europe on the nuclear issue. Over the weekend, Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said 'the Iranian nation would not retreat one iota from its rights.' Earlier, Israel's deputy Prime Minister, Shaul Mofaz, had also taken a hard line, claiming that Iran was simply pursuing a strategy of 'buying time', and adding that Israel believed 'Iran will reach enrichment capability' by 2009.

Although such statements may be a cover for more substantive discussions in private, the rhetoric is not encouraging. Mofaz added, for example, 'it's a race against time and time is winning'. Early last month, when oil prices were at $150/bbl, I suggested that they could easily slip to $100/bbl if diplomacy worked. Equally, I worried that they could rise to $200/bbl if military action took place, and Iran blocked oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz. Hedging against both possible outcomes still seems a prudent strategy for chemical companies to adopt.

I noted in June that P&G were reviewing their global supply chain strategy, as a result of higher oil prices. Now a study by Canadian Bank CIBC suggests the rise in shipping costs equals a '9% tariff on trade', adding that 'the cost of moving goods, not the cost of tariffs' is now the 'largest barrier to global trade'.

Chemical companies have pioneered globalisation over the past 20 years. But the cost of shipping a 40 foot container from Shanghai to the US has more than doubled in recent years, from $3k to $8k. Ships are also travelling slower, to reduce fuel costs. Whilst consumers worry about the carbon footprint caused by global product movements.

Unlike gasoline, which is generally produced for local use, most chemicals made in Asia are actually consumed in the West. So although any move to repatriate production would take years to fully implement, the impact on exporting countries could be large. Currently high Asian growth rates could reduce substantially - by some estimates, for example, 80% of Guangdong's GDP is actually export-related.

A year ago, it was fashionable to claim that the Asian economies had 'decoupled' from the West. Any slowdown would simply pass them by. Last December, I noted a rare dissenting voice, Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley, who commented that 'decoupling is a good story, but its not going to work going forward'. In March, I noted that 'away from the headlines, the Shanghai stock exchange has been collapsing', and was already down 44% from its peak.

I noted last month that German industrial production fell 2.4% in May, and that Chancellor Angela Merkel was expecting 'a significant fall' in economic growth for 2009. This fall now seems to be already underway. Industrial output fell by a further 2.9% in June, and for the seventh month in a row - the longest period of decline for nearly 20 years. German officials are also indicating that GDP fell by around 1% in Q2.

The specific problem in Germany is a lack of export orders. In Spain, the economy is also facing recession, as housing market problems spread to the wider economy. Manufacturing output fell 9% in June, and H1 industrial output was down 3.1%. As a result, the Bank of Spain is now forecasting GDP at 0% for 2008.

A multi-year global downturn seems more and more likely, as the major Western economies all appear to be running out of steam simultaneously.

Chemical company CFOs need to step up their monitoring of customers' creditworthiness. That's the clear message today from ratings agency Moody's, who report that corporate defaults are rising sharply.

According to Moody's Director, Kenneth Emery, 'the pace of corporate defaults increased considerably in July as economic conditions weakened and more companies experienced financial distress. Under our baseline model forecast scenario, the global default rate is expected to climb sharply over the next twelve months to 6.3%, while it could reach 10% in a downside scenario of a protracted U.S. recession.'

The credit crunch began a year ago. At that time, the blog was very much in a minority when worrying that it might turn into something big enough to impact 'the real economy'. A year later, it is fascinating to review the crunch's impact so far, and how people's attitudes have changed:

Tighter lending standards, and higher spreads for borrowers, are continuing to create headwinds for the US economy. As far back as January, senior loan officers at major US banks were reporting that they were tightening mortgage lending standards. Yesterday, the latest quarterly US Federal Reserve survey showed that 60% of banks have now tightened their standards 'in all major loan categories'. And, the Fed reports, most expected to keep tightening into 2009, whilst 80% of banks said they had increased the spread they charged to corporate borrowers.

US and European auto sales fell again last month.

GM reported total US sales down 27% versus 2007, due to a 'challenging US economic environment'
Toyota were down 19%, with Lexus sales badly hit, down 25%
Ford were down 13%, and said they 'expected H2 to be more challenging than H1, as economic and credit conditions weaken'.
Chrysler were down 29%, in spite of their offer to reduce gasoline prices to $2.99/gal for new car buyers.

European auto sales also continued to weaken, falling 6.7%, with the UK down 13% and Spain down 28%.

Chemical company CFOs will also have taken note of the suggestion from accountants Grant Thornton that one third of US auto suppliers could go bankrupt if current conditions continue. 'Any new production cutbacks will make supplier cash flow problems more difficult to manage', they warned in their latest Review.

OPEC's oil output hit an all-time record in July at 32.8Mbd, due to higher volumes from Saudi and Iran. The Saudi increase to 9.55Mbd was in line with their pledge at the Jeddah summit in June to raise output to 9.7Mbd. But the Iranian increase appears to have been a one-off, as the country sold off stockpiles that had been built up whilst refineries underwent seasonal maintenance. And on the demand side, Chinese consumption continued to boom, rising above the 8Mbd level for the first time to reach 8.3Mbd in June.

According to the International Energy Agency's latest monthly report, some demand destruction is now taking place in Western countries, as a result of higher oil prices. It notes that 'even if retail prices ease, it seems unlikely that motorists who have purchased smaller cars will revert to gas-guzzling vehicles'. But the IEA still expects global demand to grow by 790kbd this year, as emerging countries and OPEC continue to subsidise domestic oil product prices.

Pimco, the world's largest bond investors, are worried about rising inflation. Their main concern is that many Asian and Middle Eastern countries had 'anchored' their currency to the US$. 'With that anchor gone', they comment, 'due to the US Federal Reserve's focus on preventing the US financial system from falling into a depression-style downward spiral, many countries find themselves anchorless'. They regard this as 'wholly inappropriate for emerging markets that are growing in aggregate around 7%, and whose inflation has picked up to double digits in many cases'.

What is the outlook for the global economy over the next few years? Are we likely to see a continuation of the 2003-7 Global Boom (the purple line)? Will growth reduce to the average level seen between 1980-2000 (the green line)? Or are we at the start of a multi-year Global Downturn (the red line)? This is a key question for the petrochemical industry, with its own growth dependent on increasing GDP/capita.

We have just published a major new Study, 'Feedstocks for Profit', that provides a completely fresh and integrated view of the key issues facing the industry, under these 3 potential Scenarios. It focuses on the main 'building blocks' (ethylene, propylene, butadiene, benzene and paraxylene) and their derivatives. It concludes that the industry is about to go through a period of increasing change, which will make decision-making more complex. This will create major challenges for producers and consumers:

• Change. The world economy may well be slowing down, after the recent boom period. At the same time, new petchem capacity in the Middle East and China is about to come onstream, whilst the US is increasing its refining capacity and gasoline production.
• Complexity. Markets are becoming more volatile. Competition is likely to increase within the main regions, as exporters find life much more difficult. Inter-polymer competition will also become more intense, as supply is increased by new capacity.
• Challenges. These developments create significant challenges. Integration (either physical or virtual), will be the critical success factor for the future. This will provide companies with the increased flexibility they will need to maximise their profits, at a time of increasing change and complexity.

A copy of this week's ICIS Chemical Business feature on the Study is available by clicking here ICB Aug08.pdf">, if you would like to read more about our Conclusions.

BASF have now reduced their 2008 GDP forecast from 2.8% to 2.4%. This may sound a small amount, but it means it is now in line with the Global Downturn Scenario set out in our Feedstocks for Profit Study. Previously, it had been just below our Base Case Scenario. CEO Jurgen Hambrecht still sounds confident, commenting that the world 'will still continue to grow respectably, even if not as fast as in the last two or three years'. But he cautions that BASF now think the 'wave-like effects of the subprime crisis' will last 'at least until H1 2009.

A year ago, the noted investment analyst, Jeremy Grantham, described the credit crisis as a 'slow motion train wreck'. The Financial Times has now updated the metaphor to describe what has happened since. It notes that train crashes happen more quickly than economic ones, and that there are pauses before the next carriage hits the one in front. It believes this explains how we have since 'moved from crisis to crisis, with rallies in between, as participants persuade themselves that the worst is over'.

Its conclusion is not encouraging for chemical companies. It expects that the problems in banking, housing and consumer markets will continue to play out 'in very slow motion'. As a result, it warns that 'we may have much longer to wait until the final impact has juddered through the train'.

When you're the richest man in the world, you can generally say what you think. Thus Warren Buffett reflected reality back in March, when he commented that 'by any commonsense definition, the US is in recession'. Yesterday, he probably ruffled a few more feathers when he told CNBC that he thought the US economy was still in recession, and 'could be worse' at the end of the year.

He also remarked that a 'financial crisis reveals which players have been swimming naked, because the tide goes out'. And, he added, 'we (have) found out that Wall Street has been kind of a nudist beach'. As a result, he expects both the US mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to require 'federal government help' to survive. He also expects more US banks to collapse as a result of 'failures where the bankers were dumb in what they did'.

China's growth rate is slowing quite sharply. Exports to the US grew just 9% in H1, half the 2007 rate. In addition, ICIS news has reported that China's important textile industry has seen a 25% decline in orders, whilst US polyethylene exports to China are also slowing. And the above chart showing China's latest Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) indicates the ratio of inventories to new orders has risen 45% since April.

Until recently, rapid growth in most Western housing and auto markets created a virtuous circle for chemical producers worldwide. Not only were these major sources of chemical demand in their own right. But as the blog noted last December, they also enabled an export boom to take place in China, due to its role as the world's leading manufacturer. In turn, this supported domestic growth and caused China's own import demand to jump. Now, unfortunately, we may be seeing a vicious circle develop, as slowing Western markets reduce China's export growth, and hence its GDP growth, in turn reducing its own import needs.

US house prices, according to today's S&P/Case-Shiller Index, are still falling quite sharply. As shown in the chart, they are now down 17% versus last year. The key influence, according to S&P, is that 'the markets that were the high-flyers during the recent real estate boom continue to be the ones that are leading the current decline'. Thus prices in Miami, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Diego are all down around 25%, whilst cities such as Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis and Washington are 'only' down around 10%.

Housing is a vital market for chemical companies. It boomed in the US and other Western countries as credit standards were relaxed between 2003-7. Now it is at the centre of the credit crunch. Martin Feldstein, Harvard economics professor, and the man who chairs the Board that determines the duration of US recessions, is clearly very worried. Writing in the Financial Times today, he summarises the outlook as follows:

'The US economy is sliding into recession. Employment, industrial production and real incomes are declining. Monetary policy has little traction because of the dysfunctional credit markets and the collapse of housing. The fiscal policy of tax rebates failed to achieve a significant impact on consumer spending. The economy will continue to decline and the financial markets to deteriorate unless a policy is adopted to stop the downward spiral of house prices.'

Anyone preparing budgets for 2009-11 will need to include a Downside Case that covers what might happen to demand, and margins, if house prices do continue to fall.

Another policy maker has decided realism is the best policy when talking about the current credit crunch. China's Liu He started the trend earlier this month, by talking about the need for 'economic restructuring'. Now the UK's Finance Minister, Alistair Darling, has become the first western official to abandon reassurance and instead to focus on the reality of current problems.

His analysis is stark in tone, and acknowledges that the depth of the crisis is far worse that he had previously understood. He says:

• Today's economic times 'are the worst they've been in 60 years'
• The downturn 'will be more profound and long-lasting' that most people had expected

Some research in yesterday's Financial Times yesterday also highlights the depth of today's problems. Its shows that Merrill Lynch has already lost 25% of all the profits it has ever made, since it became a listed company back in 1971. And, of course, there are probably still more losses to come, as global housing markets remain weak.

Many readers have been out of the office during August on a well-deserved break. I am therefore highlighting below the main postings over the past month, in the hope this will help them to catch up quickly on key developments - please click on the highlighted title if you want to read the original posting:

• Oil prices were still close to $150/bbl in early August, but the blog again warned they could easily slip towards $100/bbl in the absence of any military action on Iran. Since then, they fell to a low of $112/bbl.
• Change, challenge, complexity. We published a major Study on the outlook for the petchem industry over the next few years. The post also contains a link to my feature article in ICB, summarising its key conclusions.
• US housing and auto markets continued to slow. US house prices fell again, and the number of new housing starts reduced. BMW warned on the outlook for 2009.
• GDP forecasts were cut by BASF. The UK's Finance Minister said the global economy was at a 60-year low, and China's minister referred to the need for economic restructuring.
• The credit crunch continued. Warren Buffett memorably referred to 'the nudist beach on Wall Street' where those bankers who had been 'swimming naked' were now being exposed.

All in all, reading through these headlines makes me think that August was probably a good month to go away. Welcome back, if you have just returned!

A trend seems to be developing amongst the world's policy makers. Last month saw China and the UK's finance ministries warning of bad times to come. Yesterday, France's finance minister joined the chorus, saying that she had 'underestimated the spillover from the US financial and housing market turmoil'. Even more significantly, her boss, French prime minister Francois Fillon, announced a cut in the government's 2008 growth forecast to just 1%, and warned that the world was facing 'A very, very serious global economic slowdown'.

There seems no end to the losses being revealed by the world's major banks. The total has now reached $514bn. 110 banks and investment firms have now posted writedowns. CitiGroup, the largest US bank, tops the list with $55.1bn of losses, closely followed by Merrill Lynch with $51.8bn. Then comes UBS of Switzerland with $44.2bn.

Back in April, the IMF forecast losses of at least $1 trillion, and warned this could lead to recession. New York professor Nouriel Roubini, who has been consistently bearish, but accurate, on the size of the problems, now forecasts the total could reach $2 trillion. That would be equivalent to almost 15% of the output of the US economy.

Roubini is also forecasting that US personal consumption will fall, now the impact of the government's Q2 $100bn stimulus package has passed. This has not happened since 1990. If Roubini is correct, 2009 could be a very difficult year for the chemical industry.

The blog has worried in the past about the way that official statistics seem to be increasingly manipulated to provide a rosy view of the economy. Barrons, the leading US investment magazine, provides another example this week, in connection with the report that US GDP grew at 3.3% in Q2.

Barrons notes that this is supposed to be a 'real' figure, ie after adjusting for inflation. This leads them to question why the inflation rate used by the statisticians was just 1.33%? And they comment, 'maybe it did -- but not in the good old U.S. of A', adding that this would have been the lowest inflation rate in 5 years. It is also a major discrepancy with official figures for consumer price inflation, which was reported at 8.8% for Q2.

Barrons suggests that if a realistic inflation estimate had been used, the US economy would instead have been shown to have contracted by 2.9%. Quite a difference!

'Deleveraging' is an ugly word, and it has ugly implications. Bill Gross of Pimco, who manages the world's largest bond fund, has done us all a favour by trying to explain its impact, and why it is likely to continue for some time to come.

He notes that all financial institutions are now reducing the leverage that they use, and as a result:

1. The costs of borrowing are rising, as more equity capital has to be used
2. These costs will continue to rise, until enough new equity capital has been raised
3. Whilst this happens, 'the price of all assets will go down'

Pimco had long forecast that housing markets were most vulnerable to deleveraging. And once house prices began to fall, equity markets soon began to weaken. More recently, commodity markets have also been hit. Oil markets have fallen sharply, as the blog forecast back in mid-July, when suggesting that prices 'could easily fall $50/bbl to $100/bbl'.

But deleveraging has other implications for chemical companies. Banks now need to cut back on corporate lending, to preserve their equity capital. Small companies have already seen overdraft limits cut back. Next, it will be the turn of larger companies.

This could be very painful. As recently as a year ago, you could still find companies who had convinced themselves that cyclicality was no longer a problem. As a result, debt levels were often much higher than considered prudent when I joined the industry.

This high leverage boosted earnings during the boom period. But as the blog warned back in August 2007, 'when we go into the 'down' cycle, leverage will exert its same impact on the downside'.

CFOs will be very busy people in the next few months, as they seek to identify and manage their credit risk.

The US government has finally decided to nationalise the two home loan giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Readers will remember I forecast this would be necessary a year ago, in a letter to the Financial Times. I argued then that 'a buyer of last resort, such as the Federal government, would probably now need to emerge, if the situation is to be stabilised'.

Fannie and Freddie guarantee 47% of all US mortgages, worth over $5 trillion - equal to the combined GDP of the UK and France. According to the excellent Gretchen Morgensen in today's New York Times, today's move 'grew out of deep concern among foreign investors that the companies' debt might not be repaid', with China owed at least $340bn.

As the blog noted in July, this vast debt was supported by just $70bn of capital. And Morgensen reveals today that even this number is probably overstated. As I discuss below, high leverage makes earnings (and management) look wonderful whilst things are going well. But it also, as we now see with Fannie/Freddie, makes bankruptcy much more likely in the down cycle.

China's Sinopec has taken a lead in reviewing its petrochemical expansion plans. Speaking to employees last week, Wang Tianpu, CPC division President, noted that 'global crude prices may remain high and the petrochemical industry may become even more competitive'. Today, he gave more details, saying that they plan to lower 2008 petchem expenditure by 4.6bn yuan ($675m). This is certainly a small step in the right direction. But it is probably 'too little, too late'.

All the 'building block' petchems (ethylene, propylene, benzene and paraxylene) face major over-capacity between 2010-14, even if Global Boom conditions return. Our newly-released 'Feedstocks for Profit' Study sets out the detail of the challenges ahead. Hopefully, its analysis will become required reading in the industry. Please contact me at phodges@iec.eu.com if you would like a copy of the Executive Summary, for discussion with your colleagues.

This morning, the blog is awarding itself a pat on the back. This is because, almost alone, it forecast in mid-July that oil prices 'could easily fall $50/bbl to $100/bbl' in the absence of any military action on Iran. And it had the courage to repeat this comment on 4 August.

It added that if prices 'fall back, then working capital (stocks etc) will take a massive hit'. This forecast also seems to have come true. The whole supply chain appears to be filled with product, bought on the basis of a consensus forecast of $200/bbl oil by Xmas. This surplus may well take weeks, if not months, to clear properly.

The only 'relief' would be if oil prices suddenly rose again. But whilst OPEC agreed yesterday that the market was 'over-supplied', they formally agreed just a minor cut of 520kbd, effectively re-establishing the 'official' quotas. If OPEC had cut further, they would have risked a real shortage in Q4, as stocks now need to build in front of the northern winter.

Another major blog forecast has been that 2007-8 was shaping up to be a repeat of 1979-80. It first stated this view last October. It worried that, as in 1979, the consumer would initially appear to absorb a major rise in oil prices. Then, as in 1980, it would become apparent that this had been 'the catalyst that finally causes the US consumer to cut back'.

US and Chinese stock markets were making record highs when this forecast was first made. But the blog worried that 'the continuing problems in the banking sector may well turn off the tap of consumer, and maybe even corporate, lending'. Nearly a year later, stock markets are well off their highs, and the latest news from the financial sector indicates that the blog's concern may prove well-founded.

August was a bad month for US auto sales. GM sales were down 20% versus 2007, Toyota down 9%, Ford down 26% and Chrysler fell 35%.

This set the blog wondering about relative performance , and the chart shows the result. 2007 wasn't a great year, with only Toyota (the red column) showing a sales gain. Q1 then saw all the majors posting sales declines versus 2007. June might have been expected to show an improvement, as the $100bn Federal stimulus package arrived with consumers. But in fact, sales fell further versus a year ago.

Ford (green) reduced its decline in July, but fell back again last month. GM (blue) is now having to bite the bullet with further production cuts, forecasting a 100k decline in Q3, and a 167k decline in Q4. Whilst Chrysler (purple) are 'bumping along the bottom', according to their President Jim Press, who sees sales being 'slow through most of 2009'.

Even more worryingly for the chemical industry, the US slowdown has also spread to other Regions. European auto sales fell 16% in August, whilst China was down 10% and India down 4%.

A year ago, Tesco, the UK supermarket giant, were early to see problems ahead in consumer markets. Now, they see problems developing for corporate lending. Last week, Tesco paid €100m more than expected when borrowing €3bn. But Nick Mourtant, group Treasurer, still thought it a good deal.

He said 'the company wanted to raise as much as possible while it could, and paid a premium to secure the money quickly'. He added that 'relying on short-term funding does not feel comfortable in the current market conditions'. Shrewd chemical company CFOs will no doubt be following Tesco's lead as fast as possible.

The blog has never liked disaster movies, but it was quite a weekend for those who do. First, there was the hurricane hitting Houston and Texas. I used to live in Houston, and watching the pictures of the damage, could recognise familiar places washed away, or burnt down. The blog's sympathy goes to all those affected.

Then, the financial hurricane arrived in New York. By Sunday night, Lehman, the 4th largest investment bank in the US was preparing for bankruptcy. And the world's largest brokerage firm, Merrill Lynch, had been rescued by Bank of America. Ken Lewis, head of BofA, was quoted last October as saying that 'I've had all the fun I can stand in investment banking'. Many more people will be echoing that thought this morning.

The scale of the US banking crisis is now starting to become clear to the world. The US government last week had to nationalise the two largest mortgage lenders, Fannie and Freddie. Both Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch have had to be rescued by other banks. And now Lehman has been let go, whilst 10 of the world's largest banks have had to establish a $70bn fund to try and mitigate the fallout from its collapse.

Slowly but surely, what began a year ago as a sub-prime collapse, is becoming a financial disaster of epic proportions. As the Wall Street Journal, the house magazine of Wall Street, writes this morning, 'The American financial system was shaken to its core on Sunday'. These are strong words from a publication not given to exaggeration. And more problems are round the corner, with insurance giant AIG now seeking a $40bn lifeline from the Federal Reserve.

Chemical company CEO's need to start preparing contingency plans for surviving a major economic downturn. After the events of the last 48 hours, the chances of this occurring are becoming uncomfortably high.

Pimco, the world's largest bond fund, have repeated their belief that we are facing a 'Minsky moment', named after Hyman Minsky (pictured). His insight was that a long period of stability, such as that experienced over the past decade, eventually leads to major instability.

This is because investors forget that higher reward equals higher risk. Instead, they believe that a new paradigm has developed, where high leverage and 'balance sheet efficiency' should be the norm. They therefore take on high levels of debt, in order to finance ever more speculative investments.

Eventually, however, a 'Minsky moment' occurs. Earnings from the new investments prove too low to pay the interest due on the debt. Confidence in the 'new paradigm' disappears and, with it, market liquidity. Investors find themselves unable to sell the under-performing asset, and suddenly realise they have over-paid. In turn, this prompts a rush for the exits. Prices then begin to drop quite sharply, as 'distress sales' take place.

Pimco argue that housing markets were the first to experience the 'Minsky moment'. Now it is occurring amongst those who financed the housing boom. Pimco's forecast is that this process will continue. They believe we are now 'moving through this progression backward, with asset prices falling, risk premiums moving higher, leverage getting scaled back and economic growth getting squeezed'.

'A disorderly failure of AIG could add to already significant levels of financial market fragility and lead to substantially higher borrowing costs, reduced household wealth, and materially weaker economic performance,' according to the US Federal Reserve last night. As a result, the US government now owns 79.9% of the nation's largest insurer, in return for providing an $85bn loan.

Does this new 'rescue' mark the end of the problems? Former EPCA speaker, Martin Wolf, is not optimistic in the Financial Times today. He sees 4 major areas where 'excesses' need to be unwound:

• 'The fall of inflated asset prices to a more sustainable level
• De-leveraging of the private sector
• Recognition of resulting financial sector losses;
• Recapitalisation of the financial system'

He adds, that 'making all this worse will be the collapse in private sector demand, as credit shrinks and wealth falls'.

Another day, another rescue. This time on the other side of the Atlantic. HBOS, the UK's largest mortgage lender, with a 20% market share, announced this morning that it was being rescued via a merger with the Lloyds TSB bank. The deal was brokered by the UK government. UK Finance Minister, Alastair Darling, told the BBC that without the deal, HBOS's future 'was very bleak indeed'.

As readers will remember, Darling rather surprised financial markets last month by suggesting that today's economic times 'are the worst they've been in 60 years'. But his assessment has now been confirmed by former US Fed Chairman, Alan Greenspan, who says it is a 'once-in-a-century' financial crisis. Greenspan added that it must have 'a significant impact on the real economy globally, and I think that indeed is what is in the process of occurring'.

Alan Greenspan's comments (below), led the blog to investigate how the world's major stock markets had moved since their recent peaks. All, as shown in the chart, are now in bear markets. Stock markets often forecast economic developments 6 - 12 months ahead, and so this represents a negative indicator for future chemical demand.

Also significant is the globalised nature of the decline. Germany and Japan peaked first in July 2007, followed by the US, UK and China in October. They were followed by India in January 2008, then Russia and Brazil in May. This pattern seems to confirm the blog's long-standing concern that we may now be facing a multi-year global slowdown, as the financial excesses of the 2003-7 boom are unwound.

Does the US Treasury read the blog? Just hours after the chart below was posted, rumours began to circulate of a major government initiative to try and stabilise financial markets.

The proposal now before Congress to authorise the spending of $700bn to bail out Wall Street contains just 849 words. It avoids the need to go into further detail via its suggestion that the Treasury Secretary should simply have unlimited authority to act as he 'deems necessary'. But 5 key questions are bound to be asked over the next few days:

What is the likely total cost? The headline number is currently $700bn, plus the $50bn spent on Friday to insure money market funds. But, of course, there is also the estimated $200bn cost for bailing out mortgage giants Fannie and Freddie, in addition to the costs of the earlier Bear Stearns bailout and of the $100bn tax rebate in May/June. So already the sums involved are more than S Korea's total GDP ($939bn).
Is this a 'done deal'? No. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) notes that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has already said 'the Democrats will insist on adding measures to protect taxpayers and tighten regulation of the industry'. They also want more help for homeowners threatened with foreclosure. So the cost is bound to rise - the Savings and Loans bailout took 10 years (1989-99), and cost more than double the original $50bn estimate.
How will the money be spent? One suggestion is that the Treasury will purchase the assets via reverse auctions. This leads the WSJ to comment that 'the government may find itself in a quandary: Does it pay more than fair-market value for hard-to-assess distressed assets, putting taxpayers on the hook for any losses? Or does it drive a hard bargain, buying for pennies on the dollar? The latter approach would further hurt financial institutions, since they would have to write down the losses and take additional hits to their balance sheets.'
Who will pay the bill? The proposal calls for US national debt to rise by a further $700bn, to $11.3 trillion. There is no suggestion that taxes will rise - instead, the government will borrow more. Global interest rates will therefore end up being higher than would otherwise have been the case. And as the blog noted in September, financial institutions are already deleveraging thier balance sheets. So this new government borrowing will 'crowd out' borrowing by companies and consumers, forcing them to cut back, and further slowing the economy.
Will it solve the crisis? The WSJ notes that the proposal only deals with one-half of the current problem. 'A revival of the credit markets and a bottoming of the housing market are keys to a revival' it comments. 'The government's debt plan may reduce the level of fear in the market, enabling the credit markets to operate properly. But such a plan wouldn't do anything about the excess supply of homes and the large number of mortgage borrowers in dire straits.'

US housing starts, so important to the chemical industry, are now firmly anchored in recession territory. The chart above, from the ACC's weekly report, shows they are at levels last seen in 1990-1. And with the current disruption in financial markets, it is hard to imagine that a recovery will start in the near future. In fact, the ACC notes that 'a bottom to the housing crisis remains elusive' and fears that 'starts could fall further'.

Industrial production is the key indicator for chemical sales. And it appears a significant decline is now underway in manufacturing. The chart shows August's purchasing manager indices (PMIs) for most of the major countries/regions. India, Switzerland, Greece and Brazil were the only ones showing expansion.

Reporting on the eurozone figures this morning, the Financial Times says they indicate that it 'has fallen into recession, with industry particularly badly hit by the fallout from global economic turmoil'. It adds that new orders in the eurozone are falling at the 'fastest pace in 5 years'.

In early August, the blog noted that politicians were beginning to recognise the seriousness of the economic situation. First, China's finance minister Liu He warned that 'an economic restructuring was inevitable'. Then the UK's finance minister said the 'global economy was at a 60-year low', and France's Prime Minister added that the world was facing a 'very, very serious global economic slowdown'. Last night, US President Bush joined the chorus, warning that 'our entire economy is in danger'.

No doubt Congress will now try again to approve some form of bailout for the US banking system. And stock markets may well rally, at least briefly, in relief. But as the Wall Street Journal comments this morning, the underlying issue behind the crisis is that 'homes were grossly overpriced, fueled by binge borrowing. For that to correct, prices must return to more affordable levels'. And it adds that even with a bailout, 'it isn't clear home prices will rise. They could simply stagnate.'

This is a critical issue for chemical companies, given the importance of housing markets for chemical demand. And a new report today suggests they are getting worse, not better. Prices are now falling in 21 of the 33 countries monitored by Global Property Guide. A year ago, only 5 countries were in a downturn.

As the blog suggested 10 days ago, CEOs could be well advised 'to start preparing contingency plans to survive a major economic downturn'. The chances of this occurring remain 'uncomfortably high'.

Peer Steinbrück, the German finance minister, has joined the growing list of politicians with a view on the current economic crisis.

His analysis differs markedly from that expressed by President Bush on Wednesday. 'The financial market crisis is above all an American problem', Steinbrück told the Bundestag (German Parliament) yesterday.

He added that 'the current turmoil was allowed to develop because of a reckless pursuit of short-term profit and huge bonuses'. Policy makers had lacked the 'political backbone' to stand up to 'bankers' greed'. And Steinbrück expects the results of the current crisis to be far-reaching. 'The U.S. will lose its status as the superpower of the world financial system, and the world's financial system will become multi-polar'.

As a result, he sees a bigger role for European banks and sovereign wealth funds from the Middle East and Asia. He also expects greater regulation of the financial system, as proposed earlier this week by Nicolas Sarkozy, French President. Separately, Sarkozy again warned that 'the crisis isn't over, and the consequences will be serious'.

The latest American Chemistry Council report on global production growth makes sombre reading for anyone outside the Middle East:

• Global growth (dark green) is now only 1.4%, versus 4.1% in January
• N American growth (dark blue) declined by 2.4% in August
• European growth (light green) was down 1.5% in July
• Central/Eastern European growth (light blue) went negative in July
• Asian (brown) and Latin American growth (pink) are both falling

By contrast, Middle Eastern growth (purple) is starting to ramp up, as the new plants come on line. Its advantaged cost base on feedstocks means, as suggested recently in our Feedstocks for Profit study, that it can still operate successfully whilst other regions have to cut back.

ICIS news reports that polymer demand is falling sharply in two key markets, China and Europe. This is a bad omen for demand in other chemical markets, as polymers are closely tied to GDP growth. Linda Naylor reports that PE volumes in Europe may be down 7% in 2008. Meanwhile, John Richardson and Malini Hariharan report that PE and PP demand in China 'could be flat or even negative'.

The cause is almost certainly the distortions caused by the run-up in crude prices since 2006. The blog has warned many times that 2007-8 was likely to prove a repeat of 1979-80, when oil prices also rose sharply. Last October, it suggested that the 'apparent boom in demand' was in fact just downstream consumers rushing 'to cover themselves before product prices moved higher'. The rest of 2008 and 2009 could be very difficult indeed, as consumers destock down the value chain.

New light has been shed on the critical question of whether domestic growth in China, and Asia, can substitute for slowing western growth. It turns out, according to research by the Royal Bank of Scotland, that both have become more export-intensive in recent years, not less:

• China's exports were just 20% of GDP in 2001. But by last year, they were 37% of GDP.
• Asia's export dependency has also increased. Exports accounted for less than 25% of regional GDP in 1980 for Asia (ex-China, Taiwan and Japan). Now they are more than 50%.

The clear conclusion is that Asia's economies did well whilst the West grew, and companies outsourced much of their basic manufacturing activity. China's slowing polymer demand may well be the first sign that slowing western growth is now about to impact Asia as well.

As if a global financial crisis wasn't enough, we now have a political crisis in the USA. Leaving aside the question of whether the 'bailout' would have worked, last night's rejection of the proposal means that we are in uncharted territory on how to move forward. The blog cannot remember a time when a sitting US President was voted down by his own party on a critical issue by a 2 - 1 majority. 133 Republicans voted against, with only 65 in favour.

An analysis in the Wall Street Journal suggests that the main opposition to the bailout came from lawmakers facing a tough re-election fight in November. It notes that '18 of the 21 most vulnerable Republicans up for re-election, and 10 of the 15 Democrats in the closest races voted against the $700 billion financial rescue'. And it adds that this illustrated 'the political hazards of bailing out Wall Street, without offering an equally generous hand to taxpayers'.

Warren Buffett, the world's leading investor, was quite candid yesterday in his views on the US economy. `In my adult lifetime, I don't think I've ever seen people as fearful, economically, as they are right now,' Buffett, 78, told PBS. 'They are not wrong to be worried'. He added that a lack of short-term credit is `sucking the blood out of the economic body of the United States.'

Buffett is a long-term investor, who says his favoured holding period for stocks is 'forever'. But even he added that, whilst he assumes a bailout bill will soon pass Congress, he doesn't expect much improvement in the economy over the next 6 months.

Last March, the blog noted an excellent article on Iceland by Gillian Tett of the Financial Times. She argued that Iceland was 'the first country run like a hedge fund'. And she worried that its banks might prove not 'too big to fail', but 'too big to rescue'? Now, it looks as though we are close to finding out the answer.

In 2007, according to Bloomberg, the assets belonging to Iceland's 3 biggest banks were 9 times the country's GDP. But on Monday, the government had to bail out the 3rd largest bank, Glitnir, to save it from bankruptcy. And now the Wall Street Journal reports growing doubt about the government's ability to rescue any other large banks.

After months of denial, Iceland's government has finally begun to face facts. On Thursday, the Prime Minister, Geir Haarde, warned that 'Government, companies, households and people have seldom faced such great difficulties'. But it may already be too late, as there are suggestions that the country will soon require a rescue package from the International Monetary Fund.

'Buy on the rumour, sell on the news' is the classic definition of a weak market. So the US stock market's reaction to the passing of the US bailout is a worrying indication that further problems may lie ahead. On 19 September, the Dow rocketed to 11388 as the bailout was confirmed. Last night, as the bailout passed into law, it closed 9% lower at 10325.

Nor do we yet know all the answers to the 5 key questions that worried the blog when the proposal was first announced last month:

What is the likely total cost? We know the cost has risen by $150bn plus from the original $700bn requested, in order to gain support from the House of Representatives. But as the New York Times points out, the bailout still has to 'put a dollar value on mortgage related assets that nobody wants'. And previous bailouts in the 1930s and 1990s ended up costing at least twice the number originally proposed.
Is it a done deal? The blog was clearly right to suggest that the bill might well not pass in its original form. And even now it has passed into law, there are serious questions over how it will operate. Will Congress allow tens of $bns to be siphoned off by Wall Street in fees, as apparently proposed by Treasury Secretary Paulson? And will he really be allowed to recruit former colleagues from Goldman Sachs 'to advise him'?
How will the money be spent? It is being suggested that it will take at least 6 weeks to put the necessary systems in place. But already people such as Alan Blinder, former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, are warning that 'you need to worry about conflicts of interest' when it comes to 'determining the bailout's winners and losers'.
Who will pay the bill? As expected, there are no tax increases planned. So the Treasury will have to borrow from domestic and overseas markets instead. With credit already tight, this may well 'crowd out' borrowing by companies and individuals, as happened in the 1970s.
Will it solve the crisis? The final package is clearly an effort to re-start interbank borrowing. But as the blog noted originally, nothing is being done about the underlying cause of today's crisis, namely 'the excess supply of homes and the large number of mortgage borrowers in dire straights'. Until this is addressed, it is hard to see how markets, and the 'real economy' in which the chemical industry operates, can truly recover.

Against this background, 'buy on the rumour, sell on the news' seems an entirely logical reaction.

A year ago, the blog was in a minority of one, with its forecast for 2008. Its heading was 'Budgeting for a Downturn'. By contrast, the consensus post-EPCA was for $70bbl oil, debt market problems to be contained, and for chemical margins to remain at 2007 levels.

This year's EPCA mood was different. There was an acceptance that a downturn was now underway. The only question was whether this would be short, or lengthy. The blog believes it will be multi-year, on the basis that not only are we entering a global economic downturn, but we are doing this at a time when the oil price is high, and when over-capacity is developing in almost every major product area.

As discussed in my ICIS radio interview, it is also clear that a financial crisis is already well-advanced, even before the economic downturn has really taken hold. What will happen if/when major industrial companies crash over the next few years? Experience from the multi-year recessions of the early 1980's and 1990's suggests that this is probably inevitable. We do not know how this will play out, but it is unlikely to be pleasant.

However, experience from previous recessions also shows that 'self-help' is a better policy than simply waiting for 'something to turn up'. The former allows companies to become 'players', and to retain some control over their own fate. The latter leads to the development of a 'victim' mentality, in which apathy develops and critical issues are left undecided.

It is also important to remember that economic cycles have always been a part of life in the chemical industry. The last 4 years have been amongst the best in our history, and we have enjoyed blue skies. So whilst there are now storm clouds ahead, a 3 - 4 year downturn does not mean that the industry will never recover.

Photo courtesy of www.freefoto.com

The blog has given up counting the number of US banks that have failed in recent weeks, away from the headlnes. Ken Lewis, CEO of Bank of America, predicted last month that half of all US banks would fail, and he is well placed to know.

Bank rescues are also rising across Europe. The German government last night supported a €50bn ($68bn) rescue for Hypo Real Estate, the country's 2nd largest real estate lender. Whilst France's biggest bank, BNP Paribas, took control of Fortis Bank in Belgium and Luxembourg for €14.5bn after a government rescue failed. Germany also followed Ireland's example in guaranteeing bank deposits, to avoid further bank runs this morning.

Against this dreadful trans-Atlantic background, the UK government is moving to address one of the fundamental issues. The Financial Times reports today that Finance Minister, Alastair Darling, is considering a taxpayer-funded 'recapitalisation of Britain's banks' as part of 'some pretty big steps which we would not take in ordinary times'.

Darling impressed the blog in August with his realisation that the 'global economy is at a 60-year low'. His move mirrors the successful Swedish response to a similar banking crisis in the early 1990's, which was also caused by a bursting property bubble.

This model only allowed the strongest banks to survive, and GDP still fell by 5% over 3 years. But its use of government money for selective recapitalisation is now viewed 'as one of history's most successful financial system bailouts'.

The moment the blog has long feared, and warned about, may be about to arrive. It appears that we may be about to revisit 1980, when for some weeks it seemed that demand for many petchem products had simply stopped. As Nigel Davis notes in an excellent ICIS insight article, we are not there yet. But the warning signs are building.

As he observes, 'the slowdown in demand growth has until now been masked by supply chain inventories, but those clouds are drawing back to reveal the true situation. Producer stocks are building as the situation deteriorates. Polymer prices have fallen sharply over the past two weeks.'

The causes are the same as in 1980:

• End user demand for polymers is focused on housing/construction and autos. As the blog has chronicled over the past year, this demand has collapsed by 20 - 60%, depending on country.
• The petchem industry, however, has been living in a 'parallel universe'. All down the value chain, buyers were instead focused on buying ahead of likely oil price rises.

As I noted in my radio interview last week, the 1980 experience tells us what to expect. First, buyers have to reduce their stocks to more 'normal' levels. This probably took place in Q3. Now, they have to adjust stocks to today's actual level of demand, which is a lot lower than 'normal'. This process will probably take most of Q4.

I remember 1980 as the scariest moment of my 30 year chemical career. We simply had no idea what was happening to us. If your Board would like to talk about the current situation, and to discuss how to manage it, please contact me. I will be happy to use my experience to try and help.

The UK is to invest £50bn ($85bn) to rescue its major banks, via part-nationalisation. In addition, it will provide unlimited amounts of cash via loans. The aim is to try and unfreeze the UK's banking system, which has been on the verge of collapse. Unlike the USA, there is no disagreement amongst the major parties over the need for the rescue.

In fact, the initial defeat of the US bailout bill last week, seemed to spur a sense of 'this mustn't happen here' amongst UK politicians. A new consensus is also beginning to form about the relative roles of government and markets. As summarised by Michael Skapinker in the Financial Times, this is based on the principle of 'the markets where possible, government where necessary'.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has now increased its estimate of total sub-prime losses to $1.4 trillion, versus $945bn in April. It estimates banks will need to raise $675bn in new capital. And Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the IMF MD, has called for the major economies to respond to the credit crisis with 'a collective commitment by authorities to address the challenges directly'.

The annual IMF meeting of the world's finance ministers takes place this weekend in Washington DC. This would be the perfect opportunity for such a collective commitment to be made. Chemical company executives will certainly share Strauss-Kahn's view that 'the time for piecemeal solutions is over'.

The German word 'Zeitgeist' describes 'the ethos or mood' of a select group of people. Back in January, the blog noted a change underway in the financial zeitgeist. Today's Wall Street Journal, normally a cheerleader for the financial community, provides a further example. After reviewing the losses to her personal portfolio, and considering how current financial market events compare to those at the start of the Great Depression, Karen Blumenthal writes:

'For more than a decade, I have gone to my local elementary school to tutor. There I spend time reading with children who own no books of their own, whose families can't afford school supplies and who have never been to a dentist. For the price of 45 minutes a week, I return to my desk feeling as wealthy as any one person needs to be'.

The blog welcomes the co-ordinated action by central banks, including the US Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, and the Banks of England and China, in cutting interest rates. Anything that suggests policymakers are starting to get their act together is good news.

But as the blog has argued since February, cutting interest rates in today's financial climate is like pushing on a string. Today's cut similarly seems to be more gesture politics than a strategy to tackle the real causes of today's problems - overleveraged banks, and collapsing housing markets.

Prospective lenders have clearly found current rates of interest unattractive, and so have exited the market. The blog therefore finds it hard to believe that cutting their potential reward will now encourage them to return

As the blog predicted, Iceland has been forced to call on the IMF for help. Finally, the country's leaders have recognised that their $20bn economy couldn't support the level of debt built up during the 'go-go' years. The pity is that it took them so long to recognise reality - and by then, any chance of avoiding disaster had long since disappeared.

Collapsing housing markets are creating major problems for chemical companies worldwide. Now JD Power, the leading auto industry research firm, is warning that 'the global auto market in 2009 may experience an outright collapse.' They add that 'while mature markets are being impacted more severely than emerging markets, no country or region is completely immune to the turmoil'. 2008 sales are already weakening:

• They forecast US volumes will be down 16%, with any recovery 'more than 18 months away'
• China's growth will be down to 10%, versus 24% in 2007
• India will grow just 5%, versus 16% last year
• Europe will be down 3% overall, with W Europe down 8% and growth in E Europe 'slowing considerably'.

CEOs will need to revisit their Downside scenario in the 2009 Budget, and check once more that it really is robust in the face of such forecasts.

Winston Churchill, a long-standing friend of the USA, once irritably but acutely observed that 'one can rely on America to get to the right conclusion, when all other options have been exhausted'. So, hopefully, it will prove with the financial crisis.

Tonight, Bloomberg and the New York Times are reporting that US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson 'is planning to buy stakes in a wide range of banks within weeks, as the credit freeze increasingly threatens to tip the U.S. economy into a deep recession'. The cost being talked is $200 - 300bn.

This has to be the right thing to do, via the purchase of preference shares. But the sum talked sounds too little to the blog. After all, the UK government is investing at least $87bn in its bank purchases, in a much smaller economy.

The purchases also need to happen much more quickly than 'within weeks'. The US$ has just slipped below ¥100: $1, and as the blog noted last November, any sustained fall below this level 'would take us into uncharted water', and create the potential to add a currency crisis to the banking and housing crises already underway.

Many new readers have turned to the blog, to better understand what is happening in the financial world, and to chemicals demand. They might like to start with the 7 September posting, which forecast the current collapse: 'The price of all assets will go down'

Also, here is a list of recent postings:
Financial crisis
US to follow UK in buying bank shares
'Incompetence and denial'
Iceland calls in IMF
Europe, N America, China cut interest rates
The zeitgeist continues to change
The time for piecemeal solutions is past
UK part-nationalises its major banks
The Swedish model
Bailout bill passes, Wall Street falls

Housing crisis and chemical demand
Credit crunch causes demand destruction
Auto markets face 'outright collapse' in 2009
'Demand and prices in free fall'Blue skies disappear
US car sales plummet, house prices fall again
Shell's priorities for the gathering economic storm
Akzo halts share buybacks

And finally, for those who would like a break from it all:
A satirical look at the banking crisis

OPEC has called an emergency summit for 18 November 'to discuss the global financial crisis, the world economic situation and the impacts on the oil market'. Its president, Chakib Khelil, added that it was 'very likely' they would cut output. This morning's price is already down to $80/bbl, with US total products demand down 8.6% in the last month as recession bites. OPEC could well be trying to hold the floor at $50/bbl by the time they meet, unless conditions in financial markets improve quickly.

Ratings agency S&P warn today that a major recession might force the 3 top US carmakers to file for bankruptcy. Clearly they share JD Power's fears, noted yesterday, about the potential for an 'outright collapse' in global auto markets. S&P says operating cash-flow needs at the firms are 'substantial', and adds that they face a 'serious challenge' in 2009.

Chemical company CFOs have some difficult decisions to make in the light of this situation. If they cut off credit to the companies, then they help to hasten any possible bankruptcy filing. If they continue to sell normally, they risk major losses if the worst happened. And if they cut off credit, whilst others continue to supply, then they will find it difficult to make up the lost sales volume elsewhere in current market conditions.

It is nearly time for the blog's annual forecast of chemical industry prospects. Of course, past performance is not necessarily a guide to future outcomes. But it is one of the better guides that we have. So before publishing the forecast next weekend, it makes sense to assess the blog's credibility by looking back at last year's outlook.

This was titled 'Budgeting for a downturn'. It took issue with the then current consensus, suggesting that this was 'very optimistic' in its belief that 'oil would remain at $70/bbl' for the year, that 'debt market problems would be contained', and that 'margins will remain at 2007 levels'.

It argued instead that there was 'a real possibility' oil prices would reach $100/bbl, and noted the alarming parallels with 1979-80, when apparent petchem demand increased (due to stock-building ahead of likely prices increases), whilst actual end-user demand collapsed. It also worried that 'the underlying position in financial markets is clearly deteriorating', and that 'new housing starts and US house prices were already very weak'.

Its main concern was that 'the latest upward rush by the oil price will be the catalyst that that finally causes the US consumer to cut back on non-essential spending. Equally, the continuing problems in the banking sector may well turn off the tap of consumer, and maybe even corporate lending'. It concluded that 'if I was drawing up budgets for 2008, I would be putting in place contingency plans for just such an outcome'.

The whole aim of the blog is to 'share ideas about the influences that may shape the chemical industry over the next 12 - 18 months'. The blog hopes that its 2008 forecast achieved this aim, and enabled readers to better prepare for today's more difficult economy.

You're looking at the man who, according to today's New York Times, is now responsible for 'choosing which US financial institutions live, and which die'. He's 35, and the assistant Treasury secretary for financial stability, Neel T Kashkari. His qualifications? He used to be a banker at Goldman Sachs, and is 6 years out of business school.

The blog feels distinctly underwhelmed. At this critical moment, was there really nobody in Washington capable of providing sound advice based on actual experience of managing financial crises?

Sir Fred Goodwin, CEO of RBS, was one of the poster boys of the new banking model. Along with his peer group, he preached the virtues of the 'efficient balance sheet'. Equity was for wimps. The blog warned over a year ago that the 'seeming genius' in recent years of people such as Sir Fred 'has been due to nothing more than the application of high leverage during the 'up' part of the business cycle. As and when we go into the 'down' cycle, leverage will exert its same impact on the downside.'

This morning, Sir Fred is gone. So is Sir Tom McKillop as Chairman - a very talented and friendly man, but out of his depth when he moved from running AstraZeneca to chairing the 'go-go' bankers at RBS. Instead, Gordon Brown is now effectively the blog's bank manager, as the UK government will end up owning 60% of RBS in exchange for a £20bn ($35bn) capital injection - twice its recent market capitalisation.

Financial markets currently seem to be discounting the end of the world. So it would be no great surprise if the recent panic was replaced by a more balanced outlook. But the unusual feature of this recession is that the banks have already gone bust, even before the 'real economy' has turned down. So unfortunately, as the blog warned early last month, this probably means that deleveraging still has a long way to run.

In August, the blog welcomed the statement by UK Finance Minister, Alistair Darling, that the 'global economy was at a 60-year low'. It noted that he was 'the first western politician to abandon reassurance and instead to focus on the reality of current problems'. But it still took until last weekend before all the relevant policymakers had taken this message on board.

Financial markets are now busy celebrating their 'escape' from the prospect of a major Depression. And so is the blog, as an economy without functioning banks would have been difficult indeed. It is just a pity that this situation was ever allowed to occur. I spelt out the potential problems in a series of 3 letters to the Financial Times in 2006-7, but policymakers were too busy cheerleading the boom years to listen:

• On 3 November 2006, I argued we should 'beware lending institutions bearing gifts'
• On 27 March 2007, I called for 'action, not words, to end the liquidity party'
• On 4 September 2007, I summed up the problem in 'Every mania is based on an illusion'

As is the way of large organisations, Darling's boss, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, will now probably get most of the credit for the rescue that is now underway. But the blog tips its hat to him.

And before we all get too carried away, it is worth remembering that the housing crisis is still unsolved. This is the origin of current problems, and the events of recent weeks have nothing to help stabilise them. The continuing decline in house prices also remains the single most important problem facing the chemical industry, as it weakens demand in core customer sectors.

As the aptly named Mr Darling said in his famous August interview, the coming downturn 'will be more profound and long-lasting' than most people expect. He was right about the risk of Depression and, unfortunately, he is right about this too. The blog will analyse the issues this poses for the chemical industry next weekend, in its annual Budget outlook.

OPEC has called an emergency meeting for 18 November to discuss measures to combat collapsing oil prices. But as the blog noted last week, by then they could be looking to defend $50/bbl. And it seems Saudi Arabia agrees. Market reports suggest 'the world's top oil exporter has already started cutting oil supplies to European refineries'.

OPEC faces a difficult few weeks. It would be political suicide, just before the US Presidential election, to announce production cuts today. Equally, oil markets could quickly tighten in Q1, if the northern hemisphere has a cold winter. That could end prices soaring, just as a new President takes office.

Yet Saudi Arabia needs $60/bbl oil to balance its budget, Venezuela perhaps $90/bbl. Western oil companies also need high prices. Last month, Total's CEO Christophe de Margerie said Angolan exploration required $70/bbl to be viable, whilst Canada's oil sands needed $90/bbl. So any short-term price fall could mean higher prices later on, if crucial projects to maintain future supplies were now to be cancelled.

But this kind of logic is too complex for the US campaign trail. Hence the Saudi move to discreetly cut production now, away from the headlines, and postpone formal OPEC discussion. It rarely pays to bet against the Saudis, so $70/bbl could be at least a temporary floor. But they have a tough few weeks ahead.

On Monday, governments announced c$3.5 trillion of recapitalisation and capital injection into the global banking system. One would have then expected the major investment institutions to rally round in support.

But on Wednesday, they conspicuously failed to do this. Instead they argued that the taxpayer should provide yet more money, in the form of dividends from the bankrupt banks. Unsurprisingly, stock markets then swooned again.

It is these same shareholders, by their focus on quarterly earnings, who have completely undermined the long-term role of company Boards. They were the ones who pushed for ever higher gearing, and who tried to unseat managements at banks, such as LloydsTSB, who expressed any sense of caution about the likely consequences of such lending.

The blog increasingly suspects that today's convulsion marks the end of the 25-year bull market from 1982 to last year's final highs. It also suspects that the next 25 years will see a return to more sobriety and careful analysis amongst major investors. The bonus culture, and its focus on maximising short-term 'shareholder value' would then disappear.

In turn, this would enable Boards to return to their proper role, as defined prior to 1982, of taking stewardship of the business for the next generation.

Asian naphtha spreads versus crude oil have fallen to all-time lows. Dubai crude was reported at c$80/bbl last week, whilst naphtha was $30/bbl lower, at a price of only $50/bbl. This shows an extreme lack of demand for naphtha, and hence for petrochemicals. In turn, this is a leading indicator of economic downturn. ICIS news tonight is reporting European naphtha at $474/t, compared to Brent at $67/bbl. So it seems likely that Europe is following Asia's lead. A global recession, defined by the IMF as GDP growth of less than 3%, is almost certainly underway.

The blog prefers to be optimistic. But 30 years in the chemical industry has taught it to be extremely realistic. So its motto for 2009 Budgets is 'batten down the hatches'. Chemical companies are likely to be sailing in some very rough seas, with treacherous currents and plenty of dangerous rocks. Survival, not growth, is therefore the prudent objective.

The key question is whether your business is robust enough to survive an extended period of low volumes and margins, against a background of tight credit markets, and continuing volatility in oil and currency markets?

Companies therefrore need to change their 2009 budget process in response to this challenge. Normally, they would develop a 'base case', and then investigate 'upside' and 'downside' scenarios. This year, companies should instead focus on the key variables around their survival Budget, so that they are prepared for most possible outcomes.

Futures markets are taking an increasingly gloomy view of oil demand. And over the past 2 weeks, the volume of NYMEX contracts to sell crude at $50/bbl has soared 50-fold. But so far, as the blog expected, physical prices have stabilised at the $70/bbl level in advance of OPEC's emergency meeting on Friday.

Current OPEC President, Chakib Khelil, today indicated OPEC will probably cut production, in stages, by between 1 - 2 mbd. This would be a bold move, just before the US elections. But many OPEC governments simply cannot afford further price falls, if they are to balance their budgets, and so they may well decide they have to take the political heat.

As the blog noted earlier this month, everyone looks to the majors for guidance during difficult times. It therefore welcomes today's comments from SABICs CEO, Mohamed Al-Mady, when announcing their Q3 results. SABIC are probably the strongest petchem producer in the world, with experienced management and access to advantaged cost feedstocks.

Al-Mady confirmed that SABIC has completed the financing of its new projects. But he then added that " the expected global recession may lead to a decline in demand for products in most of the international markets". This is clearly a carefully worded comment, which anticipates an actual decline in demand, and not just a decline in growth rates. Al-Mady's downbeat view seems similar to the blog's, which yesterday published its own 2009 Outlook, 'Budgeting for survival'.

China was the first major country to recognise the need for economic restructuring, back in August. Today, the State Council announced further details of its plans, as Q3 GDP growth slowed to 9%. Agriculture and rural development are now the key priorities. This builds on the recent Communist Party decision, described as being of "historic importance", to allow villagers to "transfer their land-using rights to market-oriented farm corporations".

By making farming more rewarding, China clearly hopes to keep more villagers on the land. This would increase food production, and help to avoid social problems in the cities. At the same time, China is not abandoning industrial development. The Council announced that it will also increase export rebates, encourage financial institutions to hand out more loans, and will provide support for technology innovation.

The new policies are entirely logical, and make good sense for China. Chemical companies will need time to absorb their implications. But at first glance, it appears that they are unlikely to provide much direct support for chemical demand, with the exception of agrochemicals. China's interest in remaining the manufacturing capital of the world may be starting to wane.

We now have an possible indication of how far house prices may have to fall in some parts of the USA, in order to attract buyers. Last month, Southern California saw a 65% rise in property sales versus September 2007. The reason, a major increase in foreclosed properties for sale. The impact on prices was severe - median prices dropped 33% versus last year, and are now down 39% from their peak.

One of the oldest rules in investment is that 'When a good management finds itself running a bad business, its the reputation of the business that survives'. Legendary US investor Kirk Kerkorian has just proved he is no exception. Back in April, he spent $1bn on buying a 6.3% stake in Ford Motor Co, and publicly supported its turnaround plan. Today, his stake is worth around 1/3rd of its initial value, and he has begun to sell. If Kerkorian is giving up, then this suggests that Ford may not have long to survive in its present form.

When Manchester United play Newcastle on 4 March next year, the US government will also be playing the UK government. United's main sponsor is AIG, now owned by the USA, whilst Newcastle's sponsor, Northern Rock, is also nationalised. West Ham, of course, were sponsored by an Icelandic bank, now bust.

The President of the UK's Football Association warned recently that the $5bn debts of the main Premier League clubs were 'high risk'. The clubs, just like many banks in recent months, immediately denied this. But the fact remains that the blog's team, Manchester United, have debts of $1.2bn; Chelsea owe $1bn: Arsenal owe $700m and Liverpool owe $600m. And only Arsenal made a profit last season ($60m), whilst MUFC lost $100m, Chelsea $125m, and Liverpool $35m.

These losses were in spite of the clubs' receipts from the current $4.6bn Sky TV deal. And the blog does wonder whether the clubs will be able to renew this on similar terms next season? Equally, will UK football fans continue to pay $100/match for the cheapest seats as the UK recession bites? Is this the real reason for Cristiano Ronaldo's unusually thoughtful face, as he turns out at Old Trafford each match?

The moment the blog has long feared has now begun to happen. Celanese chairman David Weidman said on Tuesday that acetic acid prices in Asia had dropped sharply in recent weeks. "Basically, orders just stopped", he added. It is almost certain that this moment will now be repeated in other product areas and in other regions, particularly as customers will be aiming to keep working capital low for year-end reasons.

The blog warned a year ago in Budgeting for a Downturn that this cycle was probably underway. And earlier this month, in 'Demand and prices in free fall' it suggested that the 'Hodges moment' (cf last month's 'Minsky moment' in banking markets) was about to arrive.

The 'Hodges moment' is when everyone in the chemicals value chain suddenly realises that they have been living in a parallel universe. Whilst they have been building inventory in advance of future oil price-related increases, demand in the real economy has been collapsing.

Now, the task is simple. Those of us who had the misfortune to be around in 1980, at least know what needs to happen next. Supply and demand need to be rebalanced to today's lower level of demand as quickly as possible. The blog also hopes that its recent 'Budgeting for Survival' will provide a helpful scenario for those seeking to 'test' their thinking in today's difficult market conditions.

Many Asian companies have been cutting back petchem production in recent weeks. Now TOTAL have become the first to follow suit in Europe, with the announcement that they will shutdown the Carling No 2 cracker for a month from mid-November. These decisions are never easy. But as the blog has noted before, when times are bad, the industry looks to the majors to take a lead. The blog therefore applauds TOTAL's management for biting the bullet, painful as it will be.

It also applauds Dow CEO, Andrew Liveris, for his continued honesty about the outlook. Liveris is now warning that "we will likely see a global recession through most of 2009". BP's Steven Welch was equally candid when noting that BP are currently seeing "reduced real demand (not just destocking)". However, the blog is puzzled, to say the least, by yesterday's claim from Nova's Jeffrey Lipton that N American "customers will have to order heavily to maintain production" during Q4.

Readers will hopefully forgive the blog a moment of nostalgia. This weekend sees the closure of SABIC's PX V plant in the UK, after producing c10 million tonnes of paraxylene. The blog's first role as a product manager was in trading 250KT/year of xylene feedstock for PX V. In turn, this led to a memorable 2 years secondment in Houston, Texas, and then into senior management.

At that time, the blog worked for ICI - then the UK's largest chemical company and No 3 in the world. In PX/PTA we were No 2, behind Amoco. Today, both companies have disappeared. Yet the PX/PTA business has gone from strength to strength. When PX V opened, world polyester demand was c15 MT, and mainly based on DMT. Today, it is c50MT, with almost all that increase based on PTA.

The blog has fond memories of those early days as part of the ICI PX fraternity, when we were successfully building a global polyester business. Rumours that SABIC will sponsor a lavish all-expenses paid farewell party in Riyadh have sadly been denied. Instead, the blog proudly marks the occasion, and thanks all those still around for their continued friendship.

The blog first raised this issue last December, when noting that global chemical industry production growth had already "slowed significantly".

At that time, it questioned whether "central bankers will be able to wave the magic wand that restores us to a growth path". And it warned "it is hard to imagine that the chemical industry can avoid a serious downturn". The above chart, based on Kevin Swift's must-read weekly report for the ACC, shows how serious the situation has now become.

• Asia Pacific growth has fallen from 10% in June 2007 to 3% in August
• Central/Eastern Europe has crashed from 10% to -3%
• Latin America growth has fallen from 3% to zero
• Western Europe has fallen from 3% to -1%
• N America has gone from zero to -3% in September

The Middle East is the only robust region, where new capacity based on advantaged feedstocks has caused growth to increase from 5% to 13%.

World chemicals growth is usually close to GDP. So it is ominous that growth had fallen from 5% to 1%, even betore the current Crash. This must further impact demand and credit availability. The blog therefore believes that the industry needs to prepare for a serious and extended downturn.

Sometimes markets move because of sentiment, sometimes because of fundamentals. Sometimes (luckily rarely), because of blind panic. The latter is what we are seeing at the moment. Investors suddenly feel they MUST sell - whether because they need the cash, have completely lost confidence, or because their family and friends are advising it.

Whatever the reason, markets then crash. But these moments, contrary to popular belief, do not come out of the blue. After the blog itself was caught in 1987, it learnt to read the warning signs, and to move aside as the moment of maximum danger approached. Thus it was able to forecast on 7 September that 'The price of all assets will go down'.

Deleveraging, which caused today's panic, will still be with us once markets stabilise again. This matters to the chemical industry, as it tells us whether we are in a dip, or a downturn.

There are welcome reports this morning that the US government is finally putting in place measure to help homeowners in danger of foreclosure. The FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corp) has developed guidelines that will "lower a loan's interest rate, extend the life of the loan or defer payment on a portion of the principal". The aim is to reduce monthly mortgage payments to a max 38% of the borrower's pre-tax income.

The blog welcomes this move, as it should help to keep people in homes, and avoid more neighbourhoods being devastated by foreclosures. Unfortunately, though it is a "fix" and not a solution to the housing crisis. It is unlikely to kick-start demand for new homes once more, and the revised borrowing terms will put more pressure on lenders. So it will do little to stimulate chemical/polymer demand in this important sector.

Last week, the Financial Times tried to lighten the current mood of doom and gloom. It began a letters page discussion about the merits of humour as an antidote to panic.

Many blog readers clearly enjoyed the recent posting 'A new bank model'. They will therefore understand why the FT today carries the blog's suggestion that Robert Shrimsley's weekly Notebook deserves to be widely read.

Benzene is an excellent indicator of the outlook for industrial production, and hence for general chemical demand. Thus tonight's ICIS news report that prices for benzene and its naphtha feedstock, are close to parity (around $390/t), tells us just how dire market conditions have become.

The blog believes this has only ever happened once before in the last 50 years, at the time of 9/11. It therefore suggests that all chemical suppliers would be sensible to adopt very conservative estimates for likely levels of real end-user demand in key sectors such as autos and housing until New Year.

Friday update. The monthly European benzene contract price literally 'crashed' today, as demand continues to collapse. ICIS news reports the November CP has fallen 60% to €316/t ($412/t), compared to €797/t in October.

Two main factors weigh on oil markets. The first, as PetroMatrix note in their latest weekly report, is that speculative players in virtually all commodity markets are being forced to deleverage their positions, and so "the bottom will be dependent on the end of the firesale". The other factor is the continuing fall in demand. OPEC's own expectation, following its 1.5mbd production cut, is that global recession means the current "fall in demand will deepen, despite the approach of winter in the northern hemisphere".

The risk is that all this uncertainty over future demand levels and prices starts to reduce future supply. A new draft study from the International Energy Agency suggests the world needs to replace 9.1% of current production every year, as existing fields reach the end of their life. As the Saudi cabinet warned on Monday, "continuation of investment" is therefore vital for the "safety and growth of the world economy".

US house prices continued their downward path in August, and "every region reported negative annual returns", according to today's new Case-Shiller index. Nationally, average prices were down 17%, with Phoenix and Las Vegas down over 30% since last August. The recent Panic in financial markets makes a quick recovery even more unlikely. US chemical companies would be wise to budget for relatively low levels of demand from this important sector during 2009.

The US Federal Reserve is now bypassing the banking system, and dealing directly with major corporate borrowers. These have been cut off from many sources of credit, as banks hoarded their cash.

The impact has been immediate, with 1500 transactions already done for a record $67bn - 10 times last week's daily level. This should provide major help for companies, as it frees up their ability to undertake normal day-to-day operations. Equally encouraging is the fact that it also caused a 20% fall in 90 day borrowing rates, to an average 2.55%.

The blog warmly welcomes this latest move to unblock credit channels. If followed by other central banks, it should mark the end of the Panic that has frozen most all financial markets since Lehman's failure last month.

Prof Nouriel Roubini of New York University was one of those to correctly forecast a global recession. He is now warning in a detailed new article that "sharp deflationary pressures" are likely to hit in 2009.

As evidence, he notes:

• the supply glut that has emerged in "housing, consumer durables, motor vehicles"
• "the unemployment rate is sharply up" and "commodity prices are sharply down"
• "the Baltic Freight index - the best measure of international shipping trade - is down 90% from its May peak"

These conditions have already led to a major loss of pricing power for many chemical products in recent weeks. Whilst the blog hopes that the New Year may see some improvement, Roubini's analysis suggests that today's problems might instead continue for some time. Prudent CEOs and CFOs will need to develop contingency plans for this depressing prospect.

The Pearl River Delta is the original heart of China's industrialisation process. The blog first visited 20 years ago, as China slowly opened up to the West, and was amazed to discover that cities such as Guangdong were already as large as Hong Kong. Today, along with Shanghai, the region is the manufacturing capital of the world.

Now, however, The Guardian reports that the area is being badly hit by the global recession. 67000 small firms collapsed in H1, with toy and textile firms badly hit, as raw material costs escalated. Then in Q3, foreign-owned firms were hit by tighter credit markets. More recently, there has been "a sharp drop in US and European consumer demand".

The blog noted in December that it was unlikely China could 'decouple' from the West, with 80% of the Delta's GDP export-related. Those Asian chemical companies who rely on exports to China's manufacturers, are already suffering. And with China's government focused on supporting the rural economy, the blog worries that China's chemical demand, outside agrochemicals, may take a long time to recover its recent growth rate.

The blog has been thinking about last week's leaked report from the International Energy Agency (IEA). This said that the world needs "to invest $360bn each year until 2030 to replace falling oil production and increase supply". The IEA based this sum on a new analysis of 500 oilfields, which showed the current depletion rate was 9.1% every year, and 6.4% even if companies invested in more wells at each field.

This means that the world is currently losing nearly 8mbd each year of current oil supply due to depletion, more than double the previous 4% assumption. Even the 6.4% rate means 5.5mbd of new oil needs to be found each year, just to keep supply stable. And, of course, demand has been growing in recent years, due to industrialisation in emerging economies in Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. This demand growth means more oil has to be found.

And there is another aspect to the issue. This is that OPEC countries, who produce 44% of the world's oil, are facing major problems from the global recession. According to Bloomberg, Dubai's government-controlled companies owe "at least $47bn, more than Dubai's GDP". The money has been borrowed on the back of a huge property boom, and the expectation that tourist numbers will double to 15 million by 2015. Other oil producers, including the 2nd largest, Russia, are in similar difficulties.

This would suggest that oil prices need to rise, on a permanent basis, in order to encourage exploration and production. Equally, oil producers need higher prices if they are to balance their budgets, and avoid social unrest. But at the moment, with destocking underway around the world, prices are instead under downward pressure. OPEC has already had to announce cuts of 1.5mbd, and may be forced to announce more, just to try and stabilise prices at today's $60/bbl.

Oil prices will probably remain under pressure whilst the current period of destocking continues. But after that, they could easily spike quite sharply, even if underlying demand is actually quite slow, as OPEC is likely to be cautious about raising production once more. And longer-term, today's relatively tight supply/demand balances may well continue. Ongoing price volatility, and a global recession, will make it difficult to fund the large investments that the IEA says are needed.

The US Federal Reserve used just to manage monetary policy for the 12 'districts' of the USA. But now, it is going global.
First, it opened unlimited "swap lines" with other G7 countries through the European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan, as well as the Swiss National Bank. Then, last week, it did the same for Brazil, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore and S Korea.

Those countries within the new "swap lines" can borrow from the USA in their own currencies - so the Fed takes the exchange rate risk. This is also something that has never happened before, and highlights just how seriously the Fed regards current problems in the world financial system. As Bloomberg comments, "5 years from now, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke will be regarded either as brilliant or reckless for so directly reaching around the globe".

October's US auto sales were as bad as expected. But even so, GM still managed a surprise. Once the undisputed market leader, its sales were truly awful, falling 45% versus October last year, as shown in the chart above. A sign of GM's own shock is that its inventory ballooned to 141 days, whilst Chrysler's was at 113 days. In mitigation, Mark LaNeve, a GM VP, described October as "probably the worst industry sales month in the post-World War 2 era". Chemical companies are also feeling real pain, as industry sales suffer along with the auto companies.

BMW, the world's largest luxury car manufacturer and owner of Rolls Royce motors, today abandoned its August forecast of record auto sales and a 4% operating margin for 2008.

CEO, Norbert Reithofer, was in downbeat mood, saying that "the financial crisis is by no means behind us yet, particularly its impact on the real economy in 2009''. BMW is cutting production, and increasing its provisions from €695m to €1.04bn, as bad debts are rising and resale values for leased vehicles are falling.

Rolls Royce prices are usually very robust in the used car market, only falling during severe recessions. Their slide suggests Reithofer's concern about the outlook for 2009 is well-founded.

ICIS is reporting today that Shell sold open spec naphtha to Cargill at $267 CFR Japan, for the first half of January. Normally the naphtha: crude ratio is around 9.5: 1. But with January Brent at $66/bbl, the ratio is now just 4:1. The blog can safely say we have never seen it this low before. And naphtha is not the only oil product facing a glut, with Petromatrix commenting that US refinery margins are currently "under extreme pressure".

With Reuters reporting that Saudi Arabia is cutting oil exports by 900,000 bpd, Cargill's purchase is logical. But the fact that a well-informed player such as Shell was selling, makes the blog slightly wary. If refiners are forced to cut runs for December, then it would be hard for OPEC to cut its own production quickly enough to compensate. In that case, a $20 - $30/bbl range for crude, albeit temporarily, would not be impossible.

TOTAL have adopted a very clear strategy for surviving the downturn. The results statement today particularly highlights their success in strengthening their balance sheet. Net debt to equity now stands at just 15.4%, whilst they are "maintaining a high-level of liquidity and divesting non-strategic holdings".

TOTAL also see a need "in the short-term" to adjust oil "supply to lower levels of demand". But they "reaffirm their view of higher oil prices in the medium to long term, supported by a tight supply-demand balance".

Their view is supported by a report in today's China Daily. This features calls from leading analysts to increase China's storage from its current 30 days of supply, and "take advantage of today's low prices to build more oil reserves".

Sen. Barack Obama duly won a landslide victory in yesterday's US Presidential election, but will not take office until 20 January.

I suggested last month in ICB, that "this delay, at such a critical moment, is not good news for chemical companies or for their customers".

The blog therefore congratulates the new President, and expresses its hope that he will find a way to move forward on tackling the key economic issues. 11 weeks would be a long time for a policy vacuum to exist on these at the heart of Washington DC.

UK interest rates have just been cut by 1.5% to 3%. They were last at this level in 1955.

The Bank of England had been very concerned about inflation, currently at 5.2%, compared to a target of 2%. But the Bank now sees no danger from inflation in the future. Instead, it is warning that there is "a substantial risk of undershooting the inflation target".

The Bank also noted that "since mid-September, the global banking system has experienced its most serious disruption for almost a century". It added that "there has been a very marked deterioration in the outlook for economic activity at home and abroad". And it expects that "the availability of credit to households and businesses is likely to remain restricted for some time".

Earlier, the European Central Bank had also recognised that inflation was no longer a major concern, when it cut rates by 0.5% to 3.25%.

Last month, the blog titled its 2009 Outlook, Budgeting for Survival. This week, the Financial Times has begun a series on developing recession survival strategy. Its key tips are:

• Manage your cash. Don't spend money unnecessarily.
• Keep a strong balance sheet. Have as little debt as possible.
• Price your products/services keenly. Be imaginative.
• Keep faith in the future. Eventually, downturns lead to an upturn.

"Our normal customers have no orders to place with us, and our credit department won't let us sell to others who might want to buy". The blog was given this plain-spoken assessment of current chemical market conditions by one of the majors yesterday.

Coincidentally, US Fed Governor Kevin Warsh was making one of his rare speeches, analysing today's "unprecedented levels of volatility and dramatic financial market and economic distress". He concluded that "we are witnessing a fundamental reassessment of the value of virtually every asset everywhere in the world".

Warsh is one of the few central bankers who tried to warn of coming problems. He pointed out in April that "liquidity should not be mistaken for capital". Now, he sees companies and investors being forced to reassess "seemingly benign risks - credit, liquidity, counterparty, and even sovereign risks". As a result, credit controllers are refusing to allow sales to be made unless they are sure the invoice can be paid.

The G-20 was created in 1999, after the financial crises that had hit emerging countries from 1997 onwards. It includes the G7 group of major industrial companies, plus the main emerging economies, including the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China). Its ministerial meeting this weekend became a preparatory session for its first-ever Heads of State meeting in Washington on Saturday, with the aim of developing "concrete policy outcomes".

Encouragingly, China used the occasion to announce a $586bn stimulus package, to be spent by the end of 2010, focusing on rural development and infrastructure programmes. As Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People's Bank of China, noted "if China can maintain domestic demand, its helpful for global stability". The BRIC countries also announced measures to promote trade flows between themselves, in an effort to compensate for lost exports to the West.

The background to these efforts is a forecast from the International Monetary Fund that world growth in 2009 will be at a recession level of 2.2%, and less than half the 5% seen last year. The IMF also forecasts that "output in the advanced economies (US, Europe, Japan) will contract" next year. This would be the "first annual contraction since 1945", and be "broadly comparable" to the major recessions of 1975 and 1982.

2 months ago the blog raised 5 key questions about the $700bn US bailout. Yesterday's news about additional government funding for insurance giant AIG confirms its concerns.

Originally, the US Treasury had insisted it would only support "healthy" firms. Now, this fiction has been abandoned. After AIG announced its 4th straight quarterly loss ($24.5bn), its original loan has had to be increased from $85bn to $112.5bn, whilst the Treasury invested another $40bn in preference shares.

Treasury said the increased support "was necessary to maintain the stability of our financial system". But as Bloomberg reports, it means that loss-making AIG has effectively become a "zombie" company, along the lines of those created in Japan during its financial market collapse of the 1990's. "The living dead keep on walking", as one commentator described it.

The blog fears that this will just be the start of a trend, with one or more of the US auto companies likely to be given a similar "lifeline" before too long. Chemical company CFOs have yet one more thing to worry about.

The blog's forecasting record is reviewed in ICIS Chemical Business this week. Click here if you would like a copy. The blog's aim is to "highlight relevant information for the busy executive, and to provide relevant and actionable analysis of key issues". The article particularly notes the blog's willingness to challenge consensus forecasts.

The blog has warned for over a year that the chemical industry faced a global downturn. It has developed a good track record on forecasting movements in oil prices, and it also forecast the global financial crisis in early September under the heading 'the price of all assets will go down'.

A few months ago, Russia's economy seemed to be recovering from its problems in the late 1990's. High prices meant oil revenues were increasing, and the currency was strong. Now, the combination of the oil price collapse and the credit crunch has reversed the position. Yesterday, the central bank was forced to raise rates to 12% to slow the rouble's fall.

ICIS news reported this month that some planned petchem investments have already been postponed. Russia is also the world's 2nd largest oil producer. But as the blog noted in May, the easy gains in production have been made. Now, only "the difficult fields" remain to be exploited. Without cash, Russia's oil production will slow even faster, setting up more feedstock problems for the chemical industry in the future.

The UK's Finance Minister said today that interest rates might need to be cut "to an unprecedented zero". And the Bank of England warned there is a real "risk of persistent and damaging falls in prices". Deflation would be a major challenge for chemical companies, for two main reasons:

• Demand is deferred, because prices are falling. This is the opposite effect to inflation, which encourages demand to be brought forward to avoid the impact of rising prices.
• Inventory becomes very expensive, as it is always falling in value.

The chemical industry is suffering badly at the moment. The blog fears that if deflation arrives, as it did in Japan during the 1990's, life could become even more difficult.

I gave an interview to ICIS radio at EPCA in September, in which I warned that the destocking process would go through two phases:

• The first, which took place during Q3, was when companies destocked in response to the falling oil price, to a more "normal" level of stock
• The second, which would occur in Q4, as companies destocked further on discovering that end-user demand was actually lower than "normal"

Two months later, Peter Salisbury has just documented in ICIS Insight the disastrous impact of this second phase, which is now taking place as forecast. Hundreds of millions of dollars has now been wiped off the value of chemical companies' inventory.

The interview was highlighted in the blog, and I just hope that readers took the appropriate action in time, and have not suffered the full pain.

The Financial Times series on surviving the downturn focuses this week on CFOs. It includes advice from Feike Sijbesma, CEO of DSM, who suggests that "you need to see how creditable your debtors are, very quickly", and advises that "maintaining a good relationship with your creditors and banks is also critical".

The Key Tips from the article are worth considering by any CFO:

• Cash is king. Monitor it daily.
• Be visible. Raise your profile in the company.
• Rethink bonuses. Make them focused on cash generation.
• Stress test. Will oil prices stay at $50/bbl? Will we see deflation?
• Strike a balance. Be tough, but don't overreact.

CFOs have a vital role in preserving the financial health of the business. They need all the help and support they can get, at this critical time.

Andrew Liveris, Dow CEO, has consistently warned that we are facing a major recession. Today, in a Bloomberg interview, he spells out the need for "radical actions" to "take out capacity".

He notes that Dow's volumes are down 10%-20% this quarter, and expects this to continue into H1 next year. And he forecasts that "we could be looking at a couple of years of trough and severe correction".

Liveris says that Dow's prices for PE and PP have fallen 40% since September. And he warns that "holding prices in the commodities is going to be near impossible in the next 3 to 6 months". He adds that demand is falling in all the major regions of the world simultaneously. "To see a global contagion of this order of magnitude, I think that is what we are currently living, and that is probably unprecedented,'' Liveris said.

Liveris' view is that plant closures of older and higher-cost plants are inevitable. Otherwise, the industry will find itself operating at "less than 80% of capacity as demand declines". He expects that "Dow and others, I think, will be taking some radical actions to take out capacity".

As the blog argued last month, survival is the key priority at the moment for many chemical companies. CEOs and Boards need to focus on developing and implementing major change management programmes as quickly as possible.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) is the global energy watchdog. Its new annual report, just published, says "the world's energy system is at a crossroads", and adds that "current global trends in energy supply and consumption are patently unsustainable". As examples, it highlights:

• The world will need 45 mb/d of new capacity (4 times current Saudi capacity) by 2030, just to offset the effect of oilfield decline.

• Conventional oil production will only rise by 5mb/d between 2007-2030, "as almost all the additional capacity from new oilfields is offset by declines in output at existing fields".

• 51% of world oil supplies will come from OPEC by 2030, as non-OPEC output falls. Saudi Arabia will have to increase production to 15.6mb/d.

• NGLs, and new output from Canadian oil sands, will have to provide most of the supply increase that the world will require by 2030.

Yet in the short-term, oil prices remain under pressure. The value of the "OPEC basket" has now dipped below $50/bbl, causing OPEC to warn of further production cutbacks. And as the blog noted earlier this month, today's low refining margins, and year-end cash pressures, may well put further short-term pressure on crude oil demand.

So there is at least a chance that we may end the year with prices, temporarily, in the $20-$30/bbl range, just when the IEA is calling for major investment to fund new sources of production.

The first-ever G-20 meeting of Heads of State was a relatively quiet event, without the presence of President-elect Obama. Two main areas seem to have been discussed:

• Regulatory reform, where finance ministers have been given until the end of March to work out new rules for the world's financial markets
• Fiscal stimulus, where the International Money Fund (IMF) proposed countries should co-ordinate a stimulus of up to 2% of GDP via tax-cuts and spending

The scale of the current crisis means that it is going to take many months to put together a sensible and deliverable strategy for recovery. This will also require co-operation amongst all the major economic powers. The G-20 is certainly the right body to take this type of initiative, rather than the G8. The blog hopes that it is up to the task.

Current market conditions are causing problems for everyone in the chemical industry. But as the blog has long feared, they are particularly testing those companies with higher debt levels. On Friday, Moody's announced a downgrading of the Corporate Family Rating of Lyondell Basell Industries to B3 to B1, and said the outlook "remains negative".

Yesterday, INEOS asked for "a waiver on its covenants". As the Financial Times reports: "The highly indebted chemicals group is struggling with a loss on its large inventory of oil following the decline in petrochemicals prices. It is also feeling the knock-on effects of a rapid deterioration in the housing and automotive sectors, two big users of its products."

The FT says that INEOS currently has €7.3bn in net debt. Q3 EBITDA was reportedly 20% down at €402m, causing INEOS to ask for the waiver for the next 6 months "whilst we wait for the mists to clear". The FT adds that INEOS will present a new 5 year business plan to its bankers by April, and could consider selling assets to reduce leverage.

An interesting note from PetroMatrix highlights the close linkage that has now developed between changes in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and WTI crude oil prices.

The chart, showing market action on Thursday, makes the point very clearly.

PetroMatrix's analysis suggests that "the correlation across asset classes remains very strong and there is little diversification of sentiment or of asset fundamentals".

6 weeks ago, I warned that "the scariest moment of my 30 year chemical career" was about to be repeated. This had been in 1980, when "for some weeks it seemed that demand for many petchem products had simply stopped".

Three weeks later, the blog confirmed that "the moment it had long feared has now begun to happen. Everyone in the chemicals value chain suddenly realises that they have been living in a parallel universe. Whilst they have been building inventory in advance of future oil price-related increases, demand in the real economy has been collapsing."

The first company to report this "moment" was Celanese, whose chairman told analysts "basically, orders just stopped". And as the blog then forecast, this "moment" has since been "repeated in other product areas and in other regions", with the effect being magnified as "customers aim to keep working capital low for year-end reasons".

The blog went on to advise that "now, the task is simple. Those of us who had the misfortune to be around in 1980, at least know what needs to happen next. Supply and demand need to be rebalanced to today's lower level of demand as quickly as possible."

Today BASF have experienced the "moment". Chairman Dr Jurgen Hambrecht announced that "customer demand in key markets has declined significantly" since the end of October, whilst "sales volumes are being impacted by increased reduction of inventory by customers".

In response, BASF are following exactly the policy advised by the blog, and are "temporarily shutting down around 80 plants worldwide...and reducing production at approximately 100 plants".

The blog salutes BASF for their courage in taking this painful but necessary step. Clearly, there will now be a final period of inventory reduction down the chain, as CFOs insist that companies end the year with maximum cash on the balance sheet.

But the blog would counsel against keeping inventory too low. In January, the auto companies and other key industries will start operating again, after their extended shutdowns, and demand will return again.

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 indicating "that the outlook for commodity petchem profitability has also weakened".

Now, benzene is giving us another clear signal. Today's actual crude price is close to $50/bbl. Yet benzene's current $250/t price implies a crude price of $16/bbl (assuming the usual formulae of an $80/t conversion margin to naphtha, which in turn should be 10 times the crude price). And although anything is possible in today's markets, it is highly unlikely that OPEC would allow a $16/bbl price to continue on more than a temporary basis, unless we are entering a massive global slump.

Today's benzene prices are therefore giving us another clear message. Producers are selling on a firesale basis, because they have to clear inventory, in order to meet year-end cash targets. Last March, benzene was telling us that profitability was about to hit a ceiling. Now it is telling us that we are getting close to the floor.

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 are operating close to technical minimums.

Those offline include the Wilton and Moerdijk crackers (both technical), with planned maintenance ongoing at Repsol's Tarragona and FAO's NC1 cracker in Antwerp (and speculation another NC Antwerp cracker may also be offline). Munchmunster, Litvinov, Notre Dame de Gravenchon and Pitesti are also all reportedly offline. Priolo is due back after maintenance, whilst the Carling No 2 closure has been announced.

Other regions, notably Asia and N America are also seeing similar shutdowns. Yet Bob notes that butadiene is the only product where even minor shortages have been seen. This tells its own story about the massive clearance of inventory now underway down the value chain.

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 fall in demand, and fire-sale pricing, caused by three main factors:

Destocking. Customers are having to unwind the "extra" volumes bought ahead of price increases during 2007 - H1 2008. Plus, they are also having to unwind any panic purchases made in June/July, when oil was widely expected to be on its way to $200/bbl.

Demand destruction. Whilst all this extra inventory was being built, end-user demand into the key housing / construction and auto sectors was actually declining. So companies are also now having to adjust their stocks to this new lower level of demand.

Year-end factors. Companies are understandably anxious to exit 2008 with maximum cash on the balance sheet. This is reducing demand still further, albeit on a temporary basis.

The first factor meant many companies were holding 20% extra stock by the end of July. Now, they not only have to work-off this volume. But they are also having to adjust to ongoing demand levels that are 20% below 2003-7 levels. Effectively, therefore, the industry has suddenly hit an "air pocket", where physical demand has temporarily appeared to vanish.

The key question, of course, is what happens next? Demand is unlikely to resume previous growth levels for some years to come. But every now and then, there will be sudden rallies, when stocks have become too low.

Such a rally could well take place in Q1, with demand "surprising" on the upside. But it would be very risky to assume this rally also marked the end of the downturn, particularly if credit markets remain difficult.

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 sales tax (VAT) by 2.5% to 15%.

The real problem with deflation is that it rewards buyers for postponing their purchases. Why buy today, when it will be cheaper tomorrow? We are already seeing the impact of deflation at work on chemical sales, and the results are not pleasant.

Darling's £12.5bn (€14.6bn, £18.8bn) VAT initiative is an attempt to tackle this specific problem, by offering a temporary tax cut that will expire at the end of 2009. As such, the blog welcomes the move. But unfortunately, £12.5bn may well prove too small an amount to counter the deflationary danger that Darling has correctly identified.

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 suggestion that China's "export growth is likely to slow sharply", as "financial market turmoil hit the economies in other emerging markets". The blog's own forecast last month, in 'Budgeting for Survival, that China's growth could bottom as low as 5%, is no longer looking quite so unlikely.

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 record low since they were first recorded in 1959. Building permits (blue line) are a leading indicator of future activity. These also remain weak, and are 40% down on 2007.

In response, the US Federal Reserve has committed $800bn to support mortgage finance. But as the blog has now argued for over a year, such measures do not address the real issue, which is that long-term interest rates are too high. This is because banks are scared to lend to each other, and so the LIBOR rate doesn't respond to changes in short-term rates.

Nouriel Roubini has some useful suggestions this morning as to what could be done to improve the situation, including the direct purchase of long-term credit instruments by the Fed. The blog hopes that the Obama team is already working on how to put such ideas into practice.

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 be pleased to know that it chose to highlight my analysis, and the blog itself.

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 put today's problems in context. My colleague, John Keeley, focused on the scary nature of today's demand slump when opening the conference. But he also reminded delegates that one must remain pro-active. His "yes, we can" approach became the key theme of the event:

• Pierre-Emmanuel Goffinet of GTIS showed how companies could use trade statistics to better understand what is happening in their markets
• Phil Allen of GEMS outlined new marketing tools to maximise profit by better understanding customer needs
• Wood Mackenzie suggested that the coming gasoline glut created an opportunity for producers to obtain cheaper feedstocks

Delegates also came away with a real insight into current problems in financial markets. Nigel Davis of ICIS insight analysed the factors behind the current collapse in demand. Whilst Paul Satchell of ING, who had correctly warned last year that the crisis had hardly begun, focused this year on the problems caused by lack of visibility down the value chain.

Summing up the 2 days, I said that I hoped the New Year would see a welcome recovery in demand. Factories will reopen downstream, and customers will need to rebuild inventories. But I warned that this would provide only temporary relief, with housing and autos in recession.

My advice was therefore to use the next few weeks to develop, and implement, robust plans to survive an extended downturn.

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" total fall of 12%. And unfortunately for the chemical industry, auto production was worst-hit last month.

A vicious cycle is clearly now underway, whereby lost exports will lead to major job cuts, and further reduce consumer spending. Japan's economy minister, Kaoru Yosano, also warned this would increase "deflationary pressure on Japan's economy".

Last March, the blog supported Warren Buffett's statement that "by any commonsense definition, the US is in recession". I also wrote an article for ICB in April, "Building your defences", to suggest how companies could develop contingency plans to deal with the "real threat" of recession.

At the time, government figures did not support Buffett's claim. But today, the official US body responsible for dating recessions has formally declared that the US entered recession last December.

As the blog expected back in May, when quoting Mark Twain's famous line "Lies, damned lies and statistics", Buffett's call has turned out "to have been right, after all".

The chart presents a sobering view of recent stock market performance. It shows (courtesy of chartoftheday.com) the Dow's performance in the first year of all bear markets since 1900. Since its 2007 peak, the Dow has fallen more than in any other bear market, even more than in 1929.

Foresight, and long-term relationships, have paid off for Dow.

Yesterday, CEO Andrew Liveris announced that a binding agreement has now been signed with Kuwait's PIC to form K-Dow Petrochemicals. PIC will pay $2bn less for their stake than originally agreed a year ago. This represents an exceptionally good outcome for Dow, given what has happened in world financial and petchem markets since then. It is also a major success for PIC, who now become a leading industry player. As the blog forecast last year, MEGlobal and Equipolymers will become part of K-Dow, taking its sales to $15bn.

Liveris and the Dow Board showed great foresight in creating the deal whilst the industry was still enjoying reasonable times. Equally, they would never have been able to conclude it, during the current meltdown, without the high level of trust developed between PIC and Dow, since the latter inherited the original Equate JV in 2001.

The blog congratulates those concerned for their ability to remain focused on the bigger picture, through all that has gone on in recent months.

INEOS is the world's 3rd largest chemicals company. Its €7.29bn debt burden ($9.2bn) means that it is also Europe's largest issuer of high yield debt. This is an unfortunate combination, given today's chemical markets.

Last month, INEOS was forced to ask its lenders for a waiver on its debt covenants. It offered to pay a 0.5% upfront fee for the waiver, plus an ongoing fee of up to 1.25%. Its lead bankers, Barclays and Merrill Lynch, offered their support immediately, but other investors have been cautious.

Bloomberg reports that INEOS has a number of US lenders, and says these are used to receiving much higher fees in return for covenant waivers. S&P data shows US companies paid an average 2.40% so far this year. And according to Reuters, "the markets' reaction shows that investors remain unconvinced that the company will be able to solve its problems by the end of May and avoid a full balance sheet restructuring".

Reuters adds that investors' concerns are also shown by the fact that insurers have recently required payments of "€7m upfront to protect €10m of the company's debt against default". INEOS senior debt has been trading around 50% of face value, whilst its junior debt has traded below 20% of face value.

INEOS has warned of an expected €400m loss on inventory write-down, if oil is $60/bbl at year-end. It announced a management restructuring of its European Olefins and Polymers businesses, and is taking a number of measures to reduce costs and improve working capital. John Reece, INEOS CFO, has also reassured investors that "the Group as a whole can produce significant profits and cash flows even at the bottom of the cycle".

Decision-time for the 233 members of INEOS's banking syndicate is 9 December, when the waiver request is likely to receive majority approval. Reports suggest, however, that the company may well have to pay an extra 0.5% in fees.

US auto makers today told Congress their "rescue plan" now needs $34bn in support, whilst GM and Chrysler said they need an $11bn loan "just to survive the year". US sales were down 37% in November, and are at their lowest annual rate since 1982:

• GM were down 41% versus 2008
• Ford were the best performer, but still down 30%
• Toyota were down 34%
• Chrysler were down 47%

In terms of overall demand, GM noted that "the annual volume of 2 production plants had simply evaporated in a single month". Whilst Ford said they plan to produce only 62% of Q1 2008 volume in Q1 2009 - 430k vehicles compared to 692k - in order to align supply with demand.

European volumes are also continuing to decline, with October data showing a 15% fall versus last year. ACEA, the industry association, notes that "new car registrations have now decreased for 6 consecutive months". New figures from the German association show that November sales were down 18%, double October's fall.

In September, the blog wondered whether "China's interest in remaining the manufacturing capital of the world may be starting to wane". Yesterday, Lou Jiwei, the chairman of China's sovereign wealth fund (China Investment Corporation) confirmed the new focus on domestic growth. He suggested that "if China can do a good job domestically, that is the best thing it can do for the world".

Lou's statement echoed last week's comments from President Hu Jintao that "difficulties in the global economy threaten to undermine growth in China". Lou also added that major losses in their western financial investments (for example, Blackstone down 82% since they bought at $29.60/share), meant they "do not have the courage to invest in financial institutions because we do not know what problems they may have".

Asian chemical demand is tied to GDP/capita growth in the West, not to domestic needs. So China's new focus means much slower growth in local chemical demand. As the blog warned a year ago ,"decoupling (of the Asia economy from the West) is a good story, but its not going to work going forward".

Sometimes a headline says it all. Today's in the Financial Times, "Markets braced for big European rate cuts", showed just how far we have travelled since the first signs of global financial crisis in August last year. Then, a co-ordinated round of interest rate cuts would have sent stock markets soaring. Now, they are taken as a sign of underlying weakness. Deflation, as the blog discussed in October, is now the real concern.

The downturn is starting to impact politics all over the world. As an example, take the recent sequence of events in Canada:

• In October, Prime Minister Harper increased his vote, but still ended 12 seats short of a majority, after calling an early General Election
• Last week, the opposition parties united against his economic policy, and called for a confidence vote in Parliament.
• In response, and for the first time in Canada's history, Harper won the Governor-General's approval to suspend Parliament for 7 weeks.

A month ago, with WTI at $70/bbl, the blog suggested that:

"If refiners are forced to cut runs for December, then it would be hard for OPEC to cut its own production quickly enough to compensate. In that case, a $20 - $30/bbl range for crude, albeit temporarily, would not be impossible."

During November, prices then slipped to $50/bbl. And since OPEC's failure last weekend to announce any production cuts, WTI has fallen to $40/bbl.

Saudi Arabia clearly played hard-ball at the OPEC meeting. Whilst highlighting their desire for $75/bbl, they did nothing to make it happen. Instead, as the perceptive Petro-Matrix has noted, they were "almost inviting market participants to push prices lower to pressure better OPEC compliance and some non-OPEC participation in the next round of cuts".

The Saudi position is entirely logical. They knew perfectly well that with oil at $50/bbl, many OPEC members would have signed up for production cutbacks, but then cheated on their quota. Saudi would then have been forced to make up the difference, at a huge cost to its revenue. But now prices have come closer to $30/bbl, compliance should be better. Fear of complete disaster is a great motivator.

Oil markets are not for the faint-hearted. OPEC now needs to make large, credible, cutbacks at their next meeting on 17 December. Otherwise the price fall could easily become self-perpetuating. After all, this week's $200/t benzene prices imply an oil price of $12/bbl on normal price and cost relationships.

The end of a major trend is usually marked by a significant increase in volatility. This seems to be what is happening to the equity bull market that began back in 1982. It has weathered a number of storms over the years, as traders kept faith with the underlying trend. But this week's Barrons, the US investment magazine, notes that the recent collapse has been marked by unprecedented volatility.

It points out that that there have been nearly 15000 trading days on Wall Street since 1950. And in all this time, there have only been 68 days when the Dow Jones has gained or lost more than 4% in a day (33 down, 35 up). Apparently, 28 of those days have occurred in the last 3 months. It seems that the Wall Street bull market may be joining the baby-boom generation, which sponsored it, in retirement.

Yesterday, Dow announced its new structure post the K-Dow JV and the planned acquisition of Rohm & Haas. This covered two main elements:

• Implementation of November's cost reduction announcement
• Dow's new organisation (the chart above)

The cost reductions were severe, with a headline 11% of staff facing redundancy. 20 plants in "high-cost areas" will close. 2000 of the 5000 jobs lost are in businesses targeted for divestment, and this process will now be "accelerated". Another 6000 contractor jobs will also go. Research spending is being reduced by $600m, and working capital by $2bn.

"New Dow" contains "feedstock-driven" and "market-driven" businesses:
Feedstock-driven includes those areas where Dow has been pursuing its "asset-light" strategy for some years. It consists of the various JV's, including Dow's share of K-Dow, plus the remaining associated petchem and basic chemical businesses. The focus will be to maximise upstream integration and become/remain lowest cost producers.
Market-driven will be solution-orientated, aiming to anticipate and meet market needs in forecast future growth areas.

The new organisation pursues the concepts first announced back in July, at the time of the R&H deal. At that time, Dow had indicated it was expecting the industry trough to last until 2011/12, with the next peak not till 2015. This led many analysts to fear a dividend cut, for the first time since 1912. In response, Dow's CEO Andrew Liveris has had to put his job on the line, saying it would not happen "on my watch".

"New Dow" is being born at a difficult time. Global markets are in recession, causing profits to weaken. But "new Dow" cannot just cut costs, as "old Dow" would have done, pay the dividend and wait for the recession to pass. It will now have to also find a way of continuing to invest in new product development within its market-focused businesses, in order to sustain their current revenue streams.

A long-standing industry friend sent me an email overnight about ethylene derivative margins. Only after sending it, did he realise that spell-check had decided to change the word "derivative" to "debilitative". But as he noted in a follow-up email, "amazing the insights of a spellchecker - I meant 'derivative' but maybe 'debilitative' is more of a commentary on the current situation..."

China has just reported its first fall in exports for 7 years. These were still growing at 19.1% in October, but fell 2.2% in November. The suddenness of the downturn is also shown in the import figures, which were down 17.9% versus 2007.

The numbers confirm the blog's long-expressed fear that China, and the Asian region, will suffer badly from the global downturn. Their relatively low levels of GDP/capita means that domestic growth rates immediately stall, as soon as exports dry up.

Several European chemical companies have been undertaking surveys of likely near-term demand from the auto sector, and have been kind enough to share their conclusions with the blog.

The results are not encouraging. It appears that every European car producer has announced plans for an extended Christmas shutdown of at least 2 weeks, compared to the usual 1 week. Some will shut for up to a month.

The issue is that European car sales are now starting to collapse, as they did 6 months ago in the US. As recently as July, when US sales were already down c22%, European sales were "only" down 7% versus 2007. But now JD Power say European sales were down 25% in November, a clear sign that a major downturn is underway. And as the blog first noted back in February, this also means increased credit risk for chemical suppliers with OEMs in the auto market.

INEOS has now confirmed that it has obtained the required covenant waivers from its banks. They had little choice, as pushing INEOS into bankruptcy would have destroyed value on a massive scale for everyone concerned. But as the blog expected, lenders successfully demanded an increased interest charge in exchange for their consent.

Investors' attention will now turn to the new business plan that the company has promised to present in Q2. Petchem and polymer markets will hopefully improve in Q1, after Q4's fire-sales. But INEOS knows its real challenge will be to demonstrate its robustness in "normal" industry bottom-of-the-cycle conditions, such as the extended downturns of the early 1980's and 1990's. The waiver request has clearly dealt a serious blow to investors' confidence. INEOS will have to work hard to regain it.

The world's major retailers, particularly Wal-Mart and Tesco, keep a very close finger on the global economic pulse.

They spotted looming recession 18 months ago - long before it became more widely apparent this year.

Yesterday, Wal-Mart's UK head went further, referring to "the dawning of the age of austerity". He added that "this won't be a recession where it is a blip, and then we are back to where things were". Instead, he forecast that "the era of conspicuous consumption is over. Saving money by cutting out waste of all kinds will be the priority".

Wal-Mart's view is echoed by Tesco CEO, Sir Terry Leahy, who noted that "the main thing is that we have to reshape the business". Customers have "less money to spend" and "you can't just buck a downturn".

Wal-Mart President, Lee Scott, also told analysts last week that there was "very little visibility as to what the economy's going to do". Scott's view is that it is now critical to "position yourself as a company that saves people money so they can live better".

Chemical companies largely ignored last year's early warning from the retailers. They have paid for this oversight in Q4, as they have had to dump inventory at firesale prices. It is vital for the future health of the industry that companies now respond quickly to the emerging new trends being highlighted by Wal-Mart and Tesco.

George Soros is one of the most successful investors in recent decades. The blog came across today a report of Soros' graphic description of the dangers of having too much debt in a business, or personally:

"Leverage was like driving along a straight, clear freeway with a sharp spike pointing from the centre of the steering wheel to an inch or two above your chest. All would be fine if the road and the traffic continued as they were, but any sudden application of the brakes would stab you through the heart."

The current credit crunch is, of course, equivalent to the "sudden application of the brakes" to which Soros referred.

There is now general agreement that we are in a global recession. The World Bank's new 'Global Economic Prospects' report expects global GDP growth of only 2.5% this year, and just 0.9% growth for 2009.

This is well below the 3% level that signals recession. And the Bank also forecasts that world trade will contract in 2009, for the first time since 1982.

The key question is therefore how long this recession will last? The blog's research has highlighted 4 main scenarios:

V-shaped. The optimistic view is that recovery is just round the corner. But this seems unlikely, given the headwinds of the credit crunch and looming over-capacity in many key chemical products.

U-shaped. This is the blog's base case. It implies the recession bottoms in 2010/11, and then begins to recover. Early decisions to close high-cost plants, and cancel unnecessary new capacities, would also be required.

W-shaped. This is often seen in serious recessions. Severe destocking leads to an apparent early recovery, as the value chain restocks. But demand then slips back again, before properly recovering.

L-shaped. This is the worst case scenario, as it implies demand could fail to recover by 2011, and might instead remain at a low level. This would mirror Japan's experience post-1990.

The blog's view is that it would be very optimistic for companies to plan on the basis that this recession will be V-shaped, as in 2002/3 and 1997/8.

Instead, it shares the view of a senior BASF executive, who has reportedly said he had "hoped it would be a U-shaped recovery (as in the early 1980's and 1990's), but now thinks it could become L-shaped".

Japan went through its "bubble years" in the 1980's, with the Nikkei index peaking at 39000 (versus 8664 today). The blog well remembers standing in front of Tokyo's Imperial Palace in Tokyo in 1988, when its land was said to be worth more than all of California.

Since then, housing and stock market bubbles have occured in many other countries. Whilst Japan was picking up the pieces, after its bubble burst in 1990.

In his first interview today, the new Bank of Japan Governor says they found no "magic formula" that could "spare economies the pain of dealing with the excesses that led to the bubble in the first place". He adds that "alarm bells should have gone off when the global economy was growing at an unsustainable 5% from 2003-7".

The result, he warns, is that "the economic cost is so huge", fiscal stimulus or low interest rates will make little difference. In Japan, for example, "the cumulative drop in property prices was 60-80%". The uncomfortable lesson from Japan, he says, is that "the economy will have to grind out the excesses - high house prices and unsustainable household debt - that inflated the bubble in the first place".

The UK is expected to build just 135,000 houses this year, compared to 203,500 in 2007. This is the lowest level since 1924, when 87.000 houses were being built (excluding the war period). The outlook for 2009 is also poor, as many current projects date from before the start of the financial crisis. In turn, this suggests that chemical demand will remain at low levels into this important sector.

Yesterday the US Fed cut interest rates to an all-time low of 0% - 0.25%. Once again, Wall Street celebrated with a major rally, even though the move had more symbolic than practical purpose. It made it appear that the authorities were "doing something", even though the evidence of previous rate cuts indicates they have had absolutely zero effect. The reason is two-fold:

• Back in January, the blog quoted Merrill Lynch's Richard Bernstein, who argued that "the Fed can lower interest rates quite a lot, but they will likely have minimal impact on the economy unless credit creation grows".
• Even earlier, in September last year, the blog quoted Rodrigo Rato, then head of the IMF, who argued presciently there was a real risk that "systemically important banks may face constraints in extending credit". This is exactly what has happened, as banks continue to deleverage.

The only encouraging element in the Fed's statement yesterday was the implicit recognition that its policy of focusing on massive interest rate reductions has been equivalent to pushing on a piece of string. There is no other way to interpret its conclusion that, after 5.25% of cuts, "financial markets remain quite strained and credit conditions tight. Overall, the outlook for economic activity has weakened further."

In admitting it had been wrong, the Fed did leave the door open for a more useful policy to emerge, when adding that it "will continue to consider ways of using its balance sheet to further support credit markets and economic activity". But "to consider" is not the same as "to act". There is still no sign that the authorities have yet developed a clear and workable plan for resolving today's crisis.

The blog warmly welcomes the move by players in the European olefins market to re-engage with monthly pricing. The rationale for its support is based upon the conclusion of the major report that International eChem produced 3 years ago, Pricing for Profit:

"The cumulative impact of the current pricing mechanisms has caused the wider marketplace to become increasingly inefficient at balancing supply with demand, particularly over the short term, with an adverse effect on total industry profitability".

This conclusion has been confirmed, once again, by the disasters that have taken place this quarter. Quarterly price mechanisms are not efficient, and they cause major value-leakage by encouraging consumers to speculate on likely movements in feedstock prices.

The recession will have a major impact on M&A activity next year, according to a new analysis by Pilko & Co. Their key conclusions are:

• Increasingly,deals will be the result of financial restructurings, workouts or bankruptcies.
• Buyers with cash and debt capacity will be able to dictate terms.
• Asian/Middle East buyers will dominate, as they can still obtain funding, and have a longer-term approach.

In the boom years, too many deals were based on a view that any purchase price was acceptable, as long as sufficient debt could be found to leverage the earnings of the acquired company. 2009 will see the painful process of unwinding this fallacy get underway.

The chart, taken from the weekly ACC report, shows just how badly chemical production has been hit in recent months:

N America. This region has been worst affected, with volumes down 12% in November versus 2007.
W Europe/CEE. Both regions were down 3% in October versus 2007
Asia/Latin America. These regions are just positive, with 1% growth.
Middle East. This region remains strong, with 14% growth, as new production based on advantaged feedstock comes online.

Overall, world growth is now a negative 1.9%, confirming that we are in a global recession. And core sectors for chemical demand such as housing and autos are still in decline. The blog therefore fears that the news on production will get worse, probably a lot worse, before it gets better.

Prof Nouriel Roubini has long been correctly bearish about the economy, and was one of the first to highlight the deflation risk. In a new interview, he sets out his thoughts for 2009, and concludes:

"I don't believe we are going to be in a depression - but we could end up like Japan that had essentially economic stagnation for a decade with deflation. You know, the "L"-shaped recession.

"At this point, the "U"-shaped recession could turn into an "L"-shaped recession if we don't fix the financial system, and the credit crisis becomes worse and if we don't get a massive fiscal stimulus. So, a lot depends on our policy reaction. If our policy reaction is appropriate, by 2010 there will be some recovery of growth.

"The only risk is that the recovery of growth could be so weak that it feels like a recession even though we are technically out of it. So there is a risk of something like a Japanese-style, multiyear economic stagnation. I would not rule it out, but it is not my benchmark scenario.

"I think there is a one-third probability it will end up that way, but a two-thirds probability that we will end up in a severe, two-year-long recession. And that would be by any standard the worst recession that the U.S. has experienced in the last 60 years."

The blog's oil price forecasts have had a stellar record this year. Last month, with its $70/bbl forecast having been realised, the blog continued to worry about downside risk:

"If refiners are forced to cut runs for December, then it would be hard for OPEC to cut its own production quickly enough to compensate. In that case, a $20 - $30/bbl range for crude, albeit temporarily, would not be impossible."

Since then, refiners have indeed been cutting runs very hard. Equally, OPEC's secretary-general has confirmed that the cartel's November cuts have only achieved c60% compliance. As a result, the January WTI contract hit $33.87/bbl last week.

The expected temporary nature of the fall has led to massive forward purchases, causing June prices to be $10/bbl higher than today's. In turn, this offers guaranteed profits for those able to find storage. 50 million barrels have so far been added to stocks as a result. And official OECD stocks have risen by 5 days, to 57 days.

This supply overhang will make it hard for prices to rally quickly from today's depressed levels. Yet an eventual supply crunch is growing ever more likely. Today's prices are a long way from the $75/bbl that is needed to make most proposed new investment viable.

The blog has been searching the websites of the major central banks, such as the IMF, World Bank, Federal Reserve and Bank of England, for research on the history of credit crises. Several readers, including Paul Noble of Parsons Brinckerhoff, have also kindly forwarded helpful studies.

The most comprehensive study that it has found analysed 33 banking crises between 1977-2002 and concluded:

• The average length of each crisis was 4.3 years
• The median loss of GDP was 7.1%
• Major crises (such as today's) caused GDP losses of at least 10%.
• GDP losses can double if the banking crisis leads to a currency crisis

The studies also suggest that lack of effective government action (eg depositor guarantees and liquidity support) causes even greater GDP losses. The US Depression led to 30% of GDP being lost.

Another key message from the research is that even "successful" government intervention comes at a high price. This is because it causes banks to lower their risk profile in two key ways:

• They prefer to hold government debt rather than make corporate loans
• They only lend to the very safest borrowers

This change in risk profile means that government intervention has the side-effect of breaking the process by which banks provide credit for the real economy. Inevitably, therefore, credit crunches are deflationary.

History's lessons on the likely course of today's crisis are thus not encouraging. Governments will initially find it easy to borrow, but face the risk of a currency crisis if foreign lenders begin to suspect they will never be able to repay the money borrowed. Companies however, will find it more difficult to borrow, as banks "de-risk" their balance sheets.

Consumers therefore face an increased risk of unemployment, and so will tend to save more, rather than spend money. In turn, this will reduce demand - further pressuring companies, and government's ability to provide fiscal stimulus.

2008 has not been a good year for M&A in the chemical sector. First, there was the collapse of Hexion's Huntsman acquisition. Today, the Kuwait government has signalled its intention to "scrap" its $17.4bn deal with Dow to form K-Dow.

This is a quite extraordinary decision by a major Middle East government, especially as it comes just 2 days before the JV was due to begin operations. Citing "major changes in the world economy, the serious impact of the global financial crisis on the assets of companies and the sharp slide in oil prices", the government says it has decided that "going ahead with this deal involved big risks".

But none of these risks are new. And none of them have suddenly appeared in the last few weeks, since the K-Dow JV was finalised earlier in December. The real reason, as the Kuwait Times notes, is undoubtedly that pressure on the deal has since been mounting in the National Assembly, with opposition MPs threatening to "grill the prime minister (in the Assembly) if the government did not cancel the deal".

The cancellation of the deal at this late stage is clearly a lose-lose for both parties. It is clearly very damaging to Kuwait's reputation in world markets. Kuwait also loses its chance to further develop a leading global position in petchems, whilst Dow loses the support it would have found from allying its petchems business with a strong upstream partner.

But Dow is still the world's No 2 chemical company. And it will no doubt have developed a contingency plan, in case the K-Dow venture did fall through. It could, for example, step-up the current relationship with Saudi Aramco, its partner in the $20bn Ras Tanura project. And nobody would be very surprised if it also now sought to renegotiate the proposed Rohm & Haas acquisition.

2008 has not ended well for the chemical industry. First there was the collapse in demand, as the various value chains destocked in response to slowing consumer demand and lower oil prices. Then INEOS, the world's 3rd largest chemical company, had to seek covenant waivers from its lenders. Now, according to the Wall Street Journal, LyondellBasell, the 4th largest chemical company, may be about to file for bankruptcy.

The underlying issue is that petrochemicals has always been a highly cyclical industry. A typical 7 year cycle involves 2 years of stunning profitability as demand recovers after a downturn, 3 years of average returns as supply and demand rebalance, and then 2 years of horrendous losses as new supply comes online just as demand slows.

We are now 5 years into the current cycle, which started in 2003. So a downturn should not therefore come as a surprise. And, of course, it follows a lengthy period when central bankers had completely failed to do their job, and had allowed personal and corporate debt to reach record levels. As I noted in a letter to the Financial Times back in March 2007, they had proved totally:

"unwilling to implement the famous dictum of William McChesney, the long-serving Fed chairman in the 1960s, that "the job of the Federal Reserve is to take away the punch bowl just when the party starts getting interesting". Instead, they seem to confuse being market-friendly with being friendly to markets."

Thus they allowed demand to continue accelerating between 2005-7, by actively promoting ever-higher levels of leverage. This benefited housing and auto demand - prime markets for petchems - whilst also encouraging companies to increase their own levels of debt. But as the blog has warned many times:

"The seeming genius of many private equity funds in recent years has been due to nothing more than the application of high leverage during the 'up' part of the business cycle. As and when we go into the 'down' cycle, leverage will exert its same impact on the downside."

The blog is now 18 months old. It has a truly global readership, and as shown in the above map, is now read in 1244 cities and 89 countries.

Its aim has always been to identify 'the influences that may shape the chemical industry over the next 12 - 18 months', and to 'develop useful insights into the key factors that will drive the industry's future performance'. So today is a suitable moment to review its development:

Economic events. The blog has been widely recognised for its success in forewarning readers of the global financial crisis. This was most obvious in its posting of 7 September, titled "The price of all assets will go down", which was written 2 weeks before the Dow Jones began its fall from 11,200 to a low of 7500. Its insight does not depend on economic models, but on its willingness to identify the key facts and let them speak for themselves.

Chemical industry growth and margins. The blog's prime interest is in understanding the trends that will drive chemical demand and profitability. Thus it follows developments in housing, autos, oil prices and the financial markets on a daily basis. Over time, this enables it to identify patterns of cause and effect. Thus its 2008 Outlook was titled 'Budgeting for a Downturn', and warned that "the consensus forecast for 2008 is very optimistic". Its more recent posting on 19 October, giving its 2009 Outlook, was titled 'Budgeting for Survival'.

Oil and feedstock prices. The blog's prime focus has been to stress the likely volatility of oil prices. This is due to tight supply/demand balances, which mean that small fluctuations around the core 85mbd level can lead to large changes in prices. This insight enabled the bog to forecast ever-high oil prices until July, when it was virtually alone is suggesting that oil prices "could easily fall $50/bbl to $100/bbl" in the absence of any military action on Iran. It then built on this success by forecasting that a further fall to $70/bbl was likely, followed by a warning on 4 November that "a $20-$30/bbl range for crude, albeit temporarily, would not be impossible". WTI's $33.87/bbl mid-December low justified this caution.

Summary. The aim of the blog is to identify key changes in the wider landscape, as early as possible. As a natural optimist, I would prefer these to be positive changes. Unfortunately, however, the last 18 months have instead proved to be full of warning signs. I hope that reading the blog has provided you with valuable insights into the underlying issues. And I will do my best to ensure that it continues to helps you prepare for the problems that we now face.

Q4 was never going to be good for US housing markets. The financial crash of September/October not only terrified potential buyers, but also meant they found it increasingly difficult to secure loans.

As the chart shows, this lethal combination hit house prices hard. The latest S&P/Case-Shiller figures show prices down 24% in October from the mid-2006 peak. 14 of the 20 metro areas saw record levels of decline, whilst S&P comment that the Pacific Northwest and Mid-Atlantic South regions joined the Sunbelt in experiencing a "severe contraction".

The East Coast is still seeing "only" single digit declines, but San Francisco saw a 31% decline versus 2007, whilst Miami was down 29%. And 6 cities, including Atlanta and Detroit, posted a record monthly decline. As S&P comment, "the bear market continues", with average prices now back to March 2004 levels.

Manufacturing output is contracting around the world. JP Morgan's global index sank 15% in December, and they expect "an intense contraction phase" to continue "for some months to come". The G7 and BRIC countries are all seeing a decline, as Nouriel Roubini notes:

• The US ISM manufacturing index hit a record low of 32.2 in December
• Eurozone manufacturing hit a record low of 33.9
• Japan suffered its worst-ever fall in November, plunging 8.1%
• Brazil's index is at 41.6, well below the neutral 50 level
• Russia's index fell to 33.8 in December, lower than in the 1998 crisis.
• India's production fell in October for the first time in 15 years
• China's December index remained close to November's record low

Meanwhile, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman points out that despite recent government moves to provide banks with more liquidity, "credit remains scarce, and the economy is still in freefall".

He warns that "this looks an awful lot like the beginning of a second Great Depression". And he worries that the fiscal stimulus planned by President-elect Obama may take months to pass Congress, and end up being too little, too late.

The past few weeks have not been good for the chemical industry, with 4 major companies suffering significant problems:

BASF warned that "customer demand in key markets has declined significantly" since October, and have temporarily shutdown 80 plants worldwide, whilst reducing production at another 100 plants.
Dow suffered a major reverse with the last minute collapse of the K-Dow venture, and had previously announced a restructuring programme.
Ineos had to seek covenant waivers from their banks.
LyondellBasell entered discussions to avert a bankruptcy filing.

This week's ICIS Chemical Business carries my forecast for 2009, which focuses on what CEO's can do, immediately, to ensure the survival of their business. Please click here if you would like to read it.

December was another bad month for US auto sales, with volumes down 36% versus 2007. Total 2008 sales of 13.2 million were the lowest since 1992, when the economy bottomed in the 1990-4 recession.

As the chart shows, sales volumes dropped continuously during 2008. They were down 10% in Q1, and then Chrysler and Ford's weakness dragged Q2 volumes lower. Q3 saw no recovery. GM then suffered a terrible October, with sales down 45%. Chrysler won the 'wooden spoon' award, however, with sales down 53% in December.

Overall, Chrysler's total volumes were down 30% in 2008 versus 2007; GM were down 23%; Ford down 21% and Toyota down 16%. And for the moment, there appears no sign of recovery. In fact, weakness continues to spread around the world, with Japanese sales down 22% in December, and both Toyota and Nissan today announcing Q1 output cuts.

LyondellBasell has become the largest-ever chemical company bankruptcy, just 12 months after its formation. Its US operations (Lyondell Chemical Co), and Basell Germany Holdings GmbH, filed for Chapter 11 protection in New York tonight. The company expects its other non-US operating entities to continue to function independently of the Chapter 11 process.

The blog is saddened by the news, particularly by the effect it will have on employees and business partners. But it will come as no surprise to blog readers. On 20 July 2007, just after the deal was announced, the blog commented as follows:

The fallout from the Lyondell bankruptcy continues to grow. One analyst has suggested Swiss bank UBS has exposure of $500m - $1.5bn. Other banks, including Citi and the UK's RBS, also have large exposures. Writing-off these debts will in turn reduce the banks' own capital. And so it will further reduce overall credit availability.

Meanwhile yesterday's bankruptcy court hearings in New York ran until after midnight, as creditors, lenders and the company negotiated on funding needs. Eventually an interim $2bn interim loan was approved, plus a $100m "super emergency loan" which will be used to fund Lyondell for the next 2 days.

Lyondell's next objective is to finalise an $8bn 'debtor in possession' loan, which would enable it to keep operating in the medium term. But for the moment, it is very hand-to-mouth. Thus it also had to obtain the court's approval to pay $8.1m of overdue wages to employees - Lyondell Chemical has 17000 employees worldwide, of whom 8000 are in the USA.

The US suffered 2.589 million job losses in 2008, making it the worst year since 1945. December's 524k losses caused the jobless rate to rise to 7.2%, the highest since 1993. Equally, the average work week fell to a record low of 33.3 hours.

Stock markets are still forecasting a V-shaped recession, but as the blog discussed last month, an extended U-shape is the most likely outcome, given the scale of the downturn. The current rally is based on the expected $750bn Obama stimulus programme, which is the latest in a long line of government initiatives since the recession started ($168bn of tax rebates, the $700bn TARP etc). This is said to be a Keynesian policy, akin to the New Deal.

But as Prof Peter Clarke of Cambridge University has pointed out, Keynes was never in favour of artificially boosting "demand by stimulating consumption". He regarded this as doomed to failure. Instead, his 'General Theory' was based on the idea of government-led investment during recessions, as "it was common sense to put idle resources to work. Savings otherwise not invested and workers otherwise left unemployed, could create valuable public assets if government took the initiative".

The new ACC weekly report rightly notes that "any economic recovery will likely begin with a turnaround in the residential housing situation". This is also the critical issue for the chemical industry, still reeling from last week's Lyondell bankruptcy filing. Yet as the ACC's chart shows above, no improvement is yet in sight. New home inventory is now 11.5 months, compared to just over 9 months in the early 1990's recession.

Stock markets have been hopeful that the new 'American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan', being proposed by President-elect Obama, will mark a turning point. But a new analysis by the incoming Administration of its own Plan does not build confidence.

One can certainly praise the authors for their honesty, but it is disturbing to find them emphasising that "all of the estimates presented are subject to significant margins of error". In fact, the blog counted 9 uses of the word "uncertainty". And the conclusion of the Executive Summary is that "uncertainty is surely higher than normal now".

The blog will judge the Plan, when it is finally published, on the same basis as it judged the earlier $700bn TARP plan. Will it "do anything about the excess supply of homes and the large number of mortgage borrowers in dire straits"? For the moment, the signs are not hopeful.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, MD of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has a surprisingly hard-hitting interview today in Bloomberg.

Casting aside normal central bank reticence he warns:

• Their current $1.4 trillion forecast of global financial losses will soon be increased by a "significant" amount.
• They will have to further reduce their November GDP forecast, which was already at a recession-level 2.2%.
• US tax cuts might have "very little impact on growth" unless targeted only at "the most vulnerable," who are likely to spend the extra cash.
• W European governments are "behind the curve" in implementing stimulus packages and are "still underestimating the needs."
• "Rates in Europe will probably go down in coming months. A decrease in interest rates is welcome but the impact will not be very important."
• "If in six months from now the crisis has worsened and many other of our members need our help, the demand may be above what we have."

As a former French Finance Minister, his final warning on the European outlook has psrticular resonance. He worries that "a rate of growth between -1% and -2% may have some really strong social consequences".

European auto sales fell 8.4% in 2008, versus 2007. Sales of 13.56m autos were just ahead of the USA's 13.2m. European volumes continue on a worsening trend, with December down 19% versus last year:

• Spanish sales were down 50%
• Sweden was down 45%
• The UK was down 21%
• The Netherlands were down 19%
• France was down 16%
• Italy was down 12%
• Germany was down 6%

Against the pace of the current decline, JD Power's forecast (above) of just a 16% sales decline in 2009 looks optimistic. Chemical companies will be hoping it is right.