Oil markets are an accident waiting to happen for the chemical industry. Oil inventories around the world are close to record levels, with the IEA (International Energy Agency) reporting they are over 61 days of demand. Equally, as the Petromatrix chart above shows, they are at record levels in the USA (the world’s largest market), and still climbing.
The major investment banks, of course, are still able to make easy money by selling the story of “demand from emerging markets and limited growth in supplies” to gullible pension funds. So it is no surprise that sentiment in the futures market continues to ignore the fundamentals.
But the risk/reward ratio for a bet on oil at $90/bbl in Q4 is starting to look pretty thin. Prices peaked at $83/bbl in early August and in spite of another bullish report last Monday, were down $9/bbl (11%) by the end of last week. So the risk of a price collapse to $60bbl or lower is clearly increasing, and is certainly now above 25%.
If it happened, then clearly OPEC would quickly cut production again. But this would be shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. So destocking, as we saw in Q4 2008 – Q1 2009 and in 1980, could again become a serious problem for the major chemical industry value chains.
Thus, if the investment banks lose their battle to support oil prices, then the chemical industry may well be left to pick up the pieces.