By John Richardson ONLY a couple of months ago a lot of people seemed confident that oil prices had settled down in the region $60-80 a barrel. At that time, though, in my 13 May seven-point guide to oil markets in H2, I flagged up some of the risks ahead. These risks remain, on top of […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Where Have All The Jobs Gone?
By John Richardson POLITICIANS everywhere know that their chances of staying in office depend on how many jobs they can at the very least prevent from disappearing down the economic plughole. Ideally, they also want to be able to lay credible claims that their “long term vision” has created lots of new employment across the […]
China Versus The EU: What A Contrast
By John Richardson IT is worth comparing what is happening in China today with what is happening in the EU. First of all, in China we are seeing: A political leadership that has been honest enough to admit that China got it wrong in the past. This has led to a new economic and social […]
Honestly, Nobody Still Has A Clue
By John Richardson JUST as the West was lucky, so was China. The Chinese economy was also buoyed by the Babyboomers, and by its 2001 admission to the World Trade Organisation that enabled it to greatly increase its role as the workshop of the world. This came at the cost of impoverished factory workers, environmental […]
The 99.9 Percent
Credit: Odysseas Gp Creative Commons BY NC SA By John Richardson WHEN the Fed launched its third round of quantitative easing (QE3), a Perth Australia-based investment analyst said: “I get the feeling that people are waking up to the fact that the Fed has lost all ability to improve the real economy. “The balance […]
EU Summit Solves Nothing
European LDPE spot prices at their lowest level since January 2010 By John Richardson THE EU Summit results might have bought a little more time, but as John Authers points out in this article in the Financial Times, “the result was the latest politically driven bounce for risk markets (including crude-oil prices and […]
No Big China Relief
By John Richardson Wen Jiabao re-emphasised at the weekend that China’s economic policy would be tweaked rather than radically overhauled because inflation, despite declining further in April, remains a major threat. Anybody hoping for a stimulus package on the scale of that which was introduced in late 2008 is therefore likely to be disappointed. And […]
Threat of Oil “Permafrost”
By John Richardson Saudi Arabian oil minister Ali al-Naimi on Tuesday did his best to calm the oil markets by arguing that the kingdom had met all its customers’ requests for crude, and was ready to raise output to full capacity of 12.5m barrels a day. “My only mission is to convey to you that […]
A Palpable Sense Of Panic
By John Richardson THE blog has sought to add to the debate during the four years it has been operating by thinking around the big macro-economic issues, and constantly keeping in touch with our market contacts at “ground level” in the petrochemicals industry, in an attempt to assess where markets might be heading. We haven’t […]
European PE, PP below Euros1,000/tonne
By John Richardson JOURNALISTS are often accused of exaggeration for the sake a good story, but it is genuinely no exaggeration to say that markets are in free-fall. Last week we reported on how European polyolefin pricing was on a downward spiral. For example, my ICIS pricing colleague Stephanie Wilson wrote in this article: “We […]
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