Source of picture: The Nymex To continue the same theme of earlier this week, I agree with my fellow blogger Paul Hodges when he warns that OPEC’s price target for $75-80/bbl could nip the nascent economic recovery in the bud. As he quite rightly argues, inventory building ahead of further crude rises in 2007-08 occurred […]
Asian Chemical Connections
The next oil shock and petrochemicals
Apologies for letting this blog slip again, but have been busy trying to make a crust presenting ICIS training courses. And so as a bonus for our army of avid readers, here are my extended thoughts on the above: In the midst of the economic crisis it would be so easy to bury your head […]
Maybe it’s not as bleak as I’ve made out…
Consensus opinion tends to swing firmly in one direction and then the other. For example, in the good old days of 2007 you would have been pretty hard-pressed to find many in the chemicals industry who saw anything but a mildly cyclical downturn. But the widely-held view now – that we are facing five years […]
It’s about scaling down rather than up
One of the new skills being learnt in this current crisis is how to run plants efficiently at low operating rates. “It’s funny that for years now, we’ve worried about how to scale up profitably. Now industry is faced with just the opposite, how to scale down profitably,” says Mark Matzopoulos, chief operating officer at […]
Micro-management gone too far?
micro-management, human resources, APIC, commodity chemicals, CEOs, credit control, financial meltdown
It really is a Mad World
As the potential swine flu pandemi threatens more lives – and even more damage to the global economy – it’s time to watch American Idol re-runs. It would be great if we could all collectively retire to some paradise island where Manchester Utd and Chelsea have never won a Premiership trophy, or any kind of […]
US petchem exports to lessen the pain?
General Motors, Dalian Commodity Exchange, China self-sufficiency, US-Asia exports
If manufacturers started buying up their suppliers….
This excellent article from The Economist about vertical integration got me thinking that if, say, auto makers start buying up parts suppliers in developed markets (in developing markets the plastics processing industry is too fragmented) we could end up facing a whole new set of industry dynamics. Buying up your supplier, or at least offering […]
Alice In Wonderland economics
China appears to be pumping money into ailing companies for social stability reasons, resulting in a build-up in inventory of unsold finished goods. Anecdotal evidence from ICIS pricing, and analysis by JP Morgan Asset Management and the China Economic Quarterly supports this view. Comparatively stronger exports to China, as my fellow blogger Paul Hodges points […]
Trade protectionism on the rise
antidumping petitions, trade protection, WTO applied and bound tariff rates
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