Sinopec is now losing 3000 yuan ($425) on every tonne of oil product sold, due to China’s price freeze, according to Sinopec spokesman Chen Ge yesterday. And this is on top of official government subsidies paid to Sinopec, which rocketed to $1bn in April. This was more that the entire subsidy paid in 2007. And […]
Chemicals and the Economy
Airlines and the chemical industry
There are some close parallels between the airline and chemical industries. Both are very capital intensive, use oil as a key raw material, and are heavily dependent on operating rates as a driver of profitability. Therefore one probably needs to pay close attention to news that American, historically the strongest US airline, has announced it […]
Oil hits $140/bbl
Chemical companies are still getting used to the idea that crude is trading above $100/bbl. For many of them, this was a complete shock, as many had believed the consensus view and budgeted for a $70/bbl average in 2008. Now, however, worse news is in prospect as forward prices have been racing away this week. […]
Russia’s oil trader
Increases in Russian oil supply have played a major role in balancing world oil markets, at a time when other non-OPEC sources such as the N Sea have been declining. Production rose from 6.2mbd in 1999 to 9.6mbd by 2006. But as I noted last month, there are signs it may now have peaked. The […]
Can $125/bbl oil be passed on downstream?
A month ago, I suggested that oil prices ‘seem set to move higher in the short-term, with $125/bbl now being talked as a target’. Readers were hopefully not too surprised, therefore, to see prices for Brent and WTI close at this level on Friday night. One of my longer-term forecasts also seems to be coming […]
The April Fools Day rally
There is an extraordinary main feature in this week’s Barron’s, the leading US investment magazine. This analyses the dramatic 391 point rally in the Dow Jones Industrials Index on 1 April. It describes this as ‘a spectacular exercise in the absurd’, and claims that the root cause was an April Fools spoof sent out that […]
Shanghai stock market crashes
China is well worth watching at the moment. Quietly, away from the headlines, the Shanghai stock exchange has been collapsing. It is now down 44% since its October peak, and fell over 5% on Wednesday. This matters to the chemical industry for two reasons: • The immediate cause of Wednesday’s fall was news that Sinopec […]
‘Too big to rescue’
Readers will know that I am a great admirer of Gillian Tett’s analyses of banking issues in the Financial Times. Today, she has another thought-provoking article, this time on the emergence of Iceland as ‘the world’s first country run like a hedge fund’. The article is worth reading in itself, but also for the question […]
FT’s subprime jokes page
Those who liked my earlier posting about Margin calling, might like to look at the new online Financial Times page devoted to subprime jokes. For example, ‘What’s the definition of an optimistic investment banker?’ ‘Someone who irons 5 business shirts on a Sunday night.’ It also mentions the prospect of a new breakfast cereal being […]
Oil price volatility rises
Volatility has been rising in the crude oil and feedstocks markets. This is because individual players have completely different strategies. In turn, this makes it difficult for chemical companies to forecast short-term feedstock costs. It also makes it difficult to maintain margins. Last Monday, crude reached a new high of $111/bbl. Then, as the scale […]
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