I gave an interview to ICIS radio at EPCA in September, in which I warned that the destocking process would go through two phases:
• The first, which took place during Q3, was when companies destocked in response to the falling oil price, to a more “normal” level of stock
• The second, which would occur in Q4, as companies destocked further on discovering that end-user demand was actually lower than “normal”
Two months later, Peter Salisbury has just documented in ICIS Insight the disastrous impact of this second phase, which is now taking place as forecast. Hundreds of millions of dollars has now been wiped off the value of chemical companies’ inventory.
The interview was highlighted in the blog, and I just hope that readers took the appropriate action in time, and have not suffered the full pain.