Grangemouth develops cluster-based vision for the future
Exactly a year ago this week, the INEOS petrochemical business at Grangemouth in Scotland was facing closure. This would have been a disaster for the thousands of people employed directly and indirectly, as…
Shell CEO says Europe needs to leverage chemicals clusters
There are 2 ways to improve operating rates in an industry. One is to increase volumes, the other is to reduce capacity. The latest APPE data covering H1 2014 for European olefin capacity highlights…
The Great Unwinding of policymaker stimulus is under way
The blog’s latest post for the Financial Times, published on the BeyondBrics blog is below.Oct 20, 2014 10:48am By Paul Hodges of International eChem Two months ago, very few people believed that markets…
“Welcome to the New Normal”
A blog reader has kindly sent the above cartoon from the financial pages of The Telegraph newspaper today. Clearly investors are beginning to share the blog’s analysis.
Great Unwinding sees prices tumble
World markets have seen major falls since the Great Unwinding of policymaker stimulus began 2 months ago. Naturally, chemical markets have taken some of the biggest hits, given the industry’s role as a leading indicator for the…
Oil prices have further to fall as Great Unwinding continues
Oil prices are highly likely to fall further, not rebound, over the next few months. That is the blog’s conclusion to its 3-part analysis of likely developments in oil markets. Having looked at the…
OPEC faces New Normal dilemma as oil demand slows
Yesterday’s post described how OPEC oil producers are seeing their export sales to the US start to disappear. But this, of course, is only one side of the story. As the chart from the Wall Street…
Saudi oil policy shaped by defence dependence on USA
The world now faces a supply glut in almost every source of energy, including oil, gas and coal. It is also seeing major increases in output of key products including gasoline, diesel and petrochemicals. Yet as the International Energy…
“You’d have to be crazy to think the stock market isn’t crazy”
The headline above was the Wall Street Journal’s summary of last week’s market action. But was it really “crazy”? Perhaps it just felt “crazy” to those who had wanted to believe central banks’ stimulus policies could…