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Dow, PIC, finalise K-Dow deal

Foresight, and long-term relationships, have paid off for Dow. Yesterday , CEO Andrew Liveris announced that a binding agreement has now been signed with Kuwait's PIC to form K-Dow Petrochemicals. PIC will pay $2bn less for their stake than originally agreed a year ago. This represents an exceptionally...

Posted to ICIS Blogs (Weblog) by Anonymous on 12-02-2008
Japan's industrial output collapses as exports dive

Japan has an ageing population. Since 1990, it has relied on exports to boost its economy. Yesterday , official figures showed industrial production is now being badly affected by the global recession. Output fell 3.1% in October, and a 6.4% decline is expected in November. Observers forecast the September...

Posted to ICIS Blogs (Weblog) by Anonymous on 11-30-2008
Hope for recovery, plan for downturn

Surprisingly, our 7th European conference this week in Cologne (co-organised with ICIS), was one of our most successful. Delegate numbers were down, as companies cut travel budgets. But those attending said they had gained much more, than if they had stayed in the office. For a start, there was the opportunity...

Posted to ICIS Blogs (Weblog) by Anonymous on 11-30-2008
Financial Times recognises the blog

The Queen of England recently asked "Why did nobody see the financial crisis coming?" The Financial Times took the view that " Some did, Ma'am. Some did ." It then initiated a search for these people. Today's Financial Times now recognises some of those who correctly warned...

Posted to ICIS Blogs (Weblog) by Anonymous on 11-29-2008
"An economic crisis of historic proportions"

President-elect Obama has become the latest world leader to "get it", as his wife Michelle once remarked. For far long, politicians seemed to believe their platitudes about the "underlying strength" of their national economies. This meant their proposed remedies were reactive, and...

Posted to ICIS Blogs (Weblog) by Anonymous on 11-25-2008
World Bank warns on China growth

The World Bank has cut its growth forecast for China's GDP to just 7.5% next year. Only 3 months ago, it was expecting 9.2%. And the Bank warns that the economy is dependent on "higher public spending" for more than half its forecast growth next year. Chemical companies will also be alarmed...

Posted to ICIS Blogs (Weblog) by Anonymous on 11-25-2008
UK cuts sales tax to fight deflation

The UK's Finance Minister, Alistair Darling, was the first western leader to warn that the current recession was the worst in 60 years . He was also the first to effectively nationalise major banks, to stave off their collapse. Now he has become the first to try to tackle the real threat of deflation...

Posted to ICIS Blogs (Weblog) by Anonymous on 11-25-2008
The end of the beginning

Last week's BASF announcement marked the end of Phase One of the downturn. This began over a year ago , with the first signs of financial crisis. Now, we will move into Phase Two - a long, multi-year recession, which will also include several bear-market rallies. The end of this "beginning"...

Posted to ICIS Blogs (Weblog) by Anonymous on 11-23-2008
10 European crackers down

My colleague Bob Townsend is well known to many in the chemical industry as an olefins expert. He has pointed out today's most unusual situation in olefins markets. Normally, an unplanned outage by one or more crackers would cause major disruption. Yet today, 10 European crackers are down, for technical...

Posted to ICIS Blogs (Weblog) by Anonymous on 11-21-2008
BASF sees "massive decline"

6 weeks ago , I warned that "the scariest moment of my 30 year chemical career" was about to be repeated. This had been in 1980, when "for some weeks it seemed that demand for many petchem products had simply stopped". Three weeks later, the blog confirmed that "the moment it...

Posted to ICIS Blogs (Weblog) by Anonymous on 11-19-2008

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