Europe top stories: weekly summary

LONDON (ICIS)–Here are some of the top stories from ICIS Europe for the week ended 14 June 2019.

Europe chems feel the pain of industrial slowdown, longer-term trends
While Europe’s economy continues to expand, the slowdown in the manufacturing sectors is reducing demand for chemicals, with some analysts forecasting that long-term trends are only set to exacerbate this.

Global crude demand to improve in H2 despite weaker OECD Asia petchems demand – OPEC
Global crude demand is expected to rally slightly from the sluggish level seen so far in 2019 in the second half of the year, with projected stronger demand from the Americas expected to offset contracting consumption in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, OPEC said on Thursday.

Crucial EU decision on base oils tariff suspension hangs over US Group II imports
EU countries are debating whether to continue to allow the import of Group II base oils without a 3.7% tariff and the consequences of this decision could be sizeable on both sides of the Atlantic, although they are not likely to hit until 2020.

Global energy consumption trends ‘unsustainable’ – BP’s CEO
The current trends in global energy demand growth and consumption are not sustainable, and continue to push away from carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction targets necessary to meet the Paris Accord commitments, the CEO at UK’s energy major BP said on Tuesday.

Europe MA prices soften on competition from Asia, US
European maleic anhydride (MA) prices have softened on the back of mediocre demand and outstanding stocks of competitively-priced imports from Asia and the US.