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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 output. This morning's price is already down to...

Posted to ICIS Blogs (Weblog) by Anonymous on 10-10-2008
'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 ICIS insight article , we are not there yet. But...

Posted to ICIS Blogs (Weblog) by Anonymous on 10-07-2008
Blue skies disappear

A year ago, the blog was in a minority of one, with its forecast for 2008. Its heading was ' Budgeting for a Downturn' . By contrast, the consensus post-EPCA was for $70bbl oil, debt market problems to be contained, and for chemical margins to remain at 2007 levels. This year's EPCA mood...

Posted to ICIS Blogs (Weblog) by Anonymous on 10-05-2008
The global stock market decline

Alan Greenspan's comments ( below ), led the blog to investigate how the world's major stock markets had moved since their recent peaks. All, as shown in the chart, are now in bear markets. Stock markets often forecast economic developments 6 - 12 months ahead, and so this represents a negative...

Posted to ICIS Blogs (Weblog) by Anonymous on 09-18-2008
OPEC says oil market 'over-supplied'

This morning, the blog is awarding itself a pat on the back. This is because, almost alone, it forecast in mid-July that oil prices 'could easily fall $50/bbl to $100/bbl' in the absence of any military action on Iran. And it had the courage to repeat this comment on 4 August . It added that...

Posted to ICIS Blogs (Weblog) by Anonymous on 09-10-2008
'A very, very serious global economic slowdown'

A trend seems to be developing amongst the world's policy makers. Last month saw China and the UK's finance ministries warning of bad times to come. Yesterday, France's finance minister joined the chorus, saying that she had 'underestimated the spillover from the US financial and housing...

Posted to ICIS Blogs (Weblog) by Anonymous on 09-02-2008
Paul Ray's excellent ICIS PE margin report provides plenty of food for thought this week. The chart above shows that European LDPE prices (the red line) have moved up quite sharply since June. But almost all of this improvement has been captured by cracker operators. Margins for integrated players...

Posted to ICIS Blogs (Weblog) by Anonymous on 08-02-2008
'2009 - another difficult year' says BMW

BMW, the world's largest luxury car manufacturer, warned today that it is no longer immune from the global downturn: 'Business conditions for the automobile industry deteriorated sharply again in the second quarter due to further ongoing steep rises in oil and raw material prices, the weakness...

Posted to ICIS Blogs (Weblog) by Anonymous on 08-01-2008
The end of 'stretch targets'

There is little doubt that chemical growth is weakening. The above chart, taken from Kevin Swift's excellent weekly report for the American Chemistry Council, indicates that a serious downturn is underway. Since January, world production growth (the solid green line) has halved - from 4.1%, to 1...

Posted to ICIS Blogs (Weblog) by Anonymous on 07-27-2008
The 'difficult task of damage control'

The central bankers' bank (the Bank for International Settlements) is not very impressed with its members' efforts over the past year. Readers may remember that its Report last year explicitly warned of the problems that were about to occur in world financial markets. This year's Report expresses...

Posted to ICIS Blogs (Weblog) by Anonymous on 07-08-2008

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