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Chemicals and the Economy

Saudi Aramco to extend shale gas search

The summer has seen several reports of reductions in ethane availability to Saudi petchem plants. This seems to have been due to two causes: • Saudi has cut back oil production by a third (4mbd) in order to comply with its 8.3mbd OPEC quota at a time of reduced global demand. This has also reduced […]

Capex spending falls as profits drop

The ICIS Top 100 listing of the world’s major chemical companies has just been published, and provides its usual store of data and insight. In his summary, editor Nigel Davis notes that 16 of the Top 100 reported a net loss in 2009, with LyondellBasell, PEMEX and INEOS the largest at $2.9bn, $1.5bn and $0.9bn […]

Demographics boosted demand, now drives savings

The blog is very pleased to have been invited to write for today’s Financial Times. Its article looks at the influence of the Western ‘baby-boom generation’, born between 1946-70. Typically, as in the UK, the period saw a 25% jump in the number of births compared to pre-War levels. Since 1970, births have fallen back […]

Global markets decoupled over past 6 months

The blog’s 6 monthly survey of major stock markets, now including the US 30 year Treasury bond, shows mixed performance since March: • The worst performers have been Shanghai and Tokyo, down ~12%. They are also the worst performers since the pre-Crisis peak, down ~50%. • In the middle are the US, UK, Russia and […]

Oil prices in longest-ever period of contango

Oil markets are now in their longest-ever period of contango. This is when prices for future months are higher than current levels. According to Bloomberg, they have now been in contango for a record 656 days. Keeping a barrel of crude in a tank on land costs 60 – 70 US cents/month, whilst hiring a […]

“Impatience can ruin a whole life”

Anyone running a chemical company knows that the benefits of certain key decisions can take years to develop. Many companies had to support their nascent pharma businesses for 20 years, before steady profits began to flow. Whilst major complexes can easily take 10 years from inception to completion. Yet in recent years, investors have become […]

Washington and Bahrain dates for the blog

The blog is delighted to have been invited to address two important industry events in coming months: Washington DC. It will be presenting a Global Outlook to the Coatings Summit, alongside CEOs including Andrew Liveris of Dow Chemical; Christopher Connor of Sherwin Williams; Hans Wijers, AkzoNobel; Kenji Sakai of Nippon Paint, as well as senior […]

Don’t try this at home…

Yesterday’s blog photo (of men sitting on planks to paint the outside of an apartment block), has led my engineering colleague, Andy Gibbins, to pass on the above link to his Top 10 video list of things you really don’t want to try at work, or at home. The blog’s favourite is No 2, with […]

China’s house prices “still too high”

Early last year, China’s leadership faced the prospect of social unrest, as 23 million people lost their jobs as Western demand dropped for China’s exports. The government bought itself time to deal with this problem by throwing money at it – $1.4trn of bank lending, and $580bn of stimulus. Earlier this year, the government then […]

Ralf Kuhlmann joins IeC

The blog is pleased to announce that Dr Ralf Kuhlmann is joining International eChem (IeC) as a Senior Vice President. He was previously Business Director, Basic Chemicals, with ExxonMobil Europe, where he was responsible for Marketing & Sales, Planning, Feedstock, and Supply Chain optimization for the European petrochemicals business. He also represented ExxonMobil on a […]

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