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• OPEC tries to hold the oil price

  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... Posted Oct 10 2008, 09:05 AM by Chemicals & The Economy Filed under: Economic growth, Oil markets, Financial Events, OPEC, crude oil prices, global downturn

• 'Demand and prices in free fall'

  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... Posted Oct 07 2008, 08:34 AM by Chemicals & The Economy Filed under: Economic growth, Oil markets, Financial Events, housing, M & A, Leverage, crude oil prices, global downturn, auto sales, polymers, cracker economics

• Polymers demand slumps in Europe, China

  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... Posted Sep 28 2008, 08:48 AM by Chemicals & The Economy Filed under: Economic growth, Oil markets, polyethylene, crude oil prices, polypropylene, polymers

• No news from Iran on nuclear issue

  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.'... Posted Aug 04 2008, 10:29 AM by Chemicals & The Economy Filed under: USA, Economic growth, Oil markets, Futures trading, crude oil prices, Iran, Israel

• Intel's Grove calls for electric cars

  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... Posted Jul 21 2008, 07:31 PM by Chemicals & The Economy Filed under: Economic growth, Oil markets, Financial Events, crude oil prices, Andy Grove, electric cars

• US, Iran to meet - crude drops $20/bbl

  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... Posted Jul 18 2008, 06:07 AM by Chemicals & The Economy Filed under: USA, Economic growth, Oil markets, Futures trading, Leverage, crude oil prices, Iran, Israel

• Bank of England warns on inflation

  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 caused by speculators. Instead it points to increasing demand, and lack of supply, as the principal... Posted Jul 17 2008, 05:38 PM by Chemicals & The Economy Filed under: Economic growth, Oil markets, Currencies, Financial Events, Bank of England, inflation, M & A, Leverage, crude oil prices

• US drivers cut back - a little

  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... Posted Jul 17 2008, 09:05 AM by Chemicals & The Economy Filed under: Economic growth, Oil markets, crude oil prices, gasoline demand

• The blog's first birthday

  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... Posted Jul 05 2008, 10:37 AM by Chemicals & The Economy Filed under: China, India, Wal-Mart, Economic growth, Oil markets, Currencies, Financial Events, credit crunch, food and energy costs, Futures trading, inflation, M & A, Leverage, Northern Rock, Dow Chemical, subprime mortgage crisis, Thailand, Warren Buffett, crude oil prices, Bear Stearns, global downturn, auto sales, Pension funds, feedstock pricing, Maserati, Tesco, Gisele Bundchen

• Chemicals feel the wind of change

  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... Posted Jun 30 2008, 06:34 AM by Chemicals & The Economy Filed under: Economic growth, Oil markets, Financial Events, Leverage, crude oil prices, global downturn

• Dow raises prices by up to 20%

  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... Posted May 28 2008, 07:43 PM by Chemicals & The Economy Filed under: Economic growth, Oil markets, Currencies, Financial Events, Futures trading, M & A, Leverage, Dow Chemical, crude oil prices, global downturn, Rohm & Haas

• Sinopec receives $1bn subsidy in April

  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... Posted May 27 2008, 11:36 AM by Chemicals & The Economy Filed under: China, Economic growth, Oil markets, Currencies, Futures trading, inflation, crude oil prices, Sinopec, oil product subsidies

• PE margins back to 2003 levels

  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... Posted May 25 2008, 05:23 PM by Chemicals & The Economy Filed under: Economic growth, Oil markets, petchem margins, crude oil prices, polymers

• Airlines and the chemical industry

  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... Posted May 25 2008, 05:09 PM by Chemicals & The Economy Filed under: Economic growth, Oil markets, Futures trading, crude oil prices, American Airlines, airlines, Air France-KLM, British Airways

• The impact of $200/bbl oil?

  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... Posted May 24 2008, 08:34 AM by Chemicals & The Economy Filed under: Economic growth, Oil markets, crude oil prices