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Asian Chemical Connections

The Hypnotic Allure Of Emerging Markets

By John Richardson A GLEAMING new skyscraper in downturn Beijing, Bangkok, Mumbai, Jakarta or Kuala Lumpur made for fantastic TV viewing, especially if a photogenic reporter was standing in front of such a building. The reporter would then talk about “Asia’s rising middle classes” as the camera panned-out to people queueing outside Louis Viton and Cartier […]

Five Misunderstandings About Oil And Maybe A Sixth One

By John Richardson THE first misunderstanding about oil prices, which everyone now accepts was wrong, arose because people took too much notice of existing cost-per-barrel economics and so assumed that from October of last year, the US would close down huge amounts of shale-oil capacity. This didn’t happen because a.) Costs were lower than anticipated […]

China PP Exports Jump 38% On Jobs Drive

  Polyolefins markets in Asia are not behaving in the way that they used to behave. For value-added analysis of these changes, and for price and margin forecasts for the region, contact john.richardson@icis.com for details of how to subscribe to our Asian Polypropylene and Asian Polyethylene forecast reports.   By John Richardson NOT everything in […]

The Real US Employment Story

By John Richardson THE “Will they won’t they?” debate became even more intense on Friday following the release of the US Labor Department’s employment report for August. Whether or not the Fed will raise interest rates in September, or at least by the end of this year, seemed no clearer as the report showed that […]

Oil Prices: A Turkey Becomes Airborne, Danger Ahead

By John Richardson OIL prices rose yesterday, despite the latest Energy Administration Information (EIA) report for the week ending 28 August revealing that: Total US commercial stocks grew by 5.7 million barrels a day – and at 1.29 billion barrels are the highest level ever reached. (Number crunching, courtesy of David Hutton of the PVM […]

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