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Chemicals and the Economy

Eurozone under pressure

Early last year, the blog flagged up a warning from Gillian Tett in the Financial Times that Iceland could go bankrupt, as its banks were “too big to rescue”. Yet at the time, the United Nations had listed it as having “the highest standard of living of any country” in the world. Unfortunately, however, Iceland’s […]

IMF warns on recession’s “social consequences”

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 […]

US job losses worst since 1945

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 […]

Bank shares drop on LyondellBasell exposure

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 […]

The CEO’s survival guide

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 […]

Global manufacturing sinks

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 […]

The blog in 2008

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 […]

LyondellBasell considers bankruptcy

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, […]

Roubini on the 2009 Outlook

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 […]

Is this a V, U, W, or L-shaped recession?

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 […]

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