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The big challenges

As delegates gather for this year's European Petrochemical Association meeting in the unreal world of Monaco (unrealf or 99.9 per cent recurring of us), I thought it was worth summarising some of the issues discussed on this blog over the last few months. We've dealt with: *Oil-price volatility...

Posted to ICIS Blogs (Weblog) by Anonymous on 09-27-2008
History will repeat itself

It is September 2025 and the financial system has imploded due to the collapse in value of collaterised green obligations (CGOs). So how did we end up in this sorry state? Here is a guide to how the crisis developed: Governments (often sovereign wealth funds that had made a fortune from selling oil and...

Posted to ICIS Blogs (Weblog) by Anonymous on 09-17-2008
The world is round after all

I asked my boss two years ago what were his favourite business books. His list included The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century by Thomas Friedman. Of course I rushed out and bought the book. It has sold by the truck load and was quoted by Mohamed Al-Mady of SABIC during his speech at...

Posted to ICIS Blogs (Weblog) by Anonymous on 09-16-2008
A drowning man will clutch onto anything

A drowning man will grab hold of any floating debris - even a plastic bag made from standard-grade Chinese polyethylene (PE). Hence, last Friday a statement by Wang Tianpu led to a few days of excited speculation about the cancellation of several Chinese cracker projects . The president of Sinopec Corp...

Posted to ICIS Blogs (Weblog) by Anonymous on 09-12-2008
Uncle Sam back from the dead?

A very interesting report by McKinsey (you can sign up free for their online newsletter which only takes a minute) expands on the theme of reverse globalisation which I talked about last week. The cost of shipping a standard 40-foot container has tripled since 2000 and labour cost increases have risen...

Posted to ICIS Blogs (Weblog) by Anonymous on 09-10-2008
Yes, I know - I was wrong!

Anybody who has had the misfortune to have to listen to me ranting on about Peak Oil of late might have heard - if they managed to stay awake long enough - that I predicted crude could not fall below $100 a barrel because of the fundamentals. I must admit my first reaction when I heard on the radio this...

Posted to ICIS Blogs (Weblog) by Anonymous on 09-10-2008
"Reports of my death......

are greatly exaggerated" wrote Mark Twain who twice had the misfortune (or perhaps good fortune, given that he was still breathing!) to read his obituary in newspapers. A full list of all those whose deaths were reported prematurely is included here in this A-Z of journalistic blunders from Wikipedia...

Posted to ICIS Blogs (Weblog) by Anonymous on 08-29-2008
Can I have those coconuts, please?

This article, by David Strahan, author of The Last Oil Shock, says that it would take three million coconuts to power one flight from London to Amsterdam on 100% biofuels. Some of the comments posted at the end of this excellent article, first published in the New Scientists, agree with Strahan that...

Posted to ICIS Blogs (Weblog) by Anonymous on 08-27-2008
The danger of bogus science

Believing what you want to believe (or pretending to believe in something because it's in your commercial interests) has always been a problem. But the stakes have never been higher than in the case of climate change. To yet again refer to the excellent New Scientist magazine, their editorial from...

Posted to ICIS Blogs (Weblog) by Anonymous on 08-22-2008
China's growth conundrum

I couldn't let today pass without including a picture of the Olympic Stadium in Beijing where the opening ceremony is about to take place. The purpose of this redefined blog is not to look at the short term, though. For expert commentaey on the effects of the Olympics and other macroeconomic factors...

Posted to ICIS Blogs (Weblog) by Anonymous on 08-08-2008

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