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Chemicals and the Economy

The car market is crashing

Winners and Losers are becoming inevitable in the world’s largest manufacturing industry. Companies and their suppliers have to manage fixed costs to survive the recession. But they also have to invest in EV/AVs if they want to have a business in the future.

Oil heads back to $30/bbl and probably lower

There was never any fundamental reason why oil prices should have doubled between January and June this year. There were no physical shortages of product, or long-term outages at key producers. But of course, there was never any fundamental reason for prices to treble between 2009 – 2011 in the Stimulus rally, or to jump […]

Chemical capacity utilisation continues to weaken

Capacity Utilisation (CU%) is the best measure we have for the current state of the global chemical industry.  It doubles as an excellent proxy for the outlook for the global economy.  And as the above chart based on latest American Chemistry Council data shows, recovery still seems a long way off: Global CU% was down […]

World Aromatics and Derivatives Conference next week

Our 13th annual World Aromatics & Derivatives Conference takes place in Berlin next week.  Jointly organised as always by International eChem and ICIS, it features a must-hear list of speakers: ExxonMobil:  Europe Business Director Tim Stedman will give a global market overview Dow Chemical: Global Business Director Pieter Platteeuw will discuss the future for benzene […]

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