Over the past 4 years, major European companies and research organisations have been working to define and demonstrate the factory of the future. Based on the Bayer Technology Services (BTS) site in Leverkusen, Germany, and with €30m ($40m) of European Union and other funding, they have now developed radically new ‘plug and play’ modular technology capable of being implemented widely […]
Chemicals and the Economy
A flap of a butterfly’s wings to freeze the UK economy
The world’s media are increasingly aware that economic growth is being impacted by major demographic change. Thus the leading UK weekly magazine, the New Statesman, has published this article by the blog last week. It looks at the challenges facing the UK in the next few months. These are, of course, the same challenges that face all the major economies. “The [UK […]
Global interest rates surge as Newton’s 3rd Law continues to operate
Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion states, “To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction“. Thus the forces of two bodies on each other are always equal and are directed in opposite directions. Policymakers forgot this Law in their response to the 2008 financial Crisis. Instead they believed that cutting short-term interest rates in the major economies to zero, […]
Financial markets worry as Fed talks of ending stimulus
After 5 years of government stimulus, policymakers are having to think about their exit plans. US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke retires in January, and most of the blog’s clients in the financial community believe that he intends to start the process before he leaves, perhaps as early as next month. This is likely to prove very scary […]
China’s empty cities create global lending risk
More details continue to surface of the wasteful spending that underpinned much of China’s GDP growth in recent years. The empty city of Ordos (first highlighted 3 years ago in the blog) is just one example. House prices there have recently fallen 50%, and the shadow banking system (critical for privately-owned companies) is reportedly in […]
High oil prices take European operating rates to record lows
Life doesn’t get any easier for Europe’s olefin producers and the consumers who depend on them. As the chart shows, based on latest APPE data, operating rates averaged just 78% in H1. This is almost as bad as H1 2009, when they were 76%. And it is a long way away from the 90% levels […]
Lack of demand threatens US ethylene expansions
The above chart paints a depressing picture for anyone thinking it should be easy to make money via a major US ethylene investment based on cheap ethane from shale gas. It shows 2012 ethylene production (red column) was still below SuperCycle levels, as were volumes for the two major derivatives – polyethylene (blue) and PVC (green). It highlights how lack of demand […]
US PVC exports see only modest growth despite shale gas advantage
The casual observer might be forgiven for imagining that the US ethylene industry should be seeing its biggest export boom of recent decades. Its ethane feedstock cost is back at its normal 25c-30c/gal range of a decade ago, whilst its oil-based competitors have seen their prices quadruple as oil moved to $100/bbl. But as the chart shows for […]
Demographics has “frightening implications” for the economy
The blog first wrote about the potential impact on GDP growth of changing demographics in January 2010, in its first White Paper, ‘Budgeting for a New Normal’ This put forward the Scenario that the world economy could face an: “L-shaped recovery, where we follow the pattern of the Japanese economy after its ‘financial bubble’ burst in 1990. […]
Bank of England boosts UK house prices as foreign buyers flood into central London
Last week saw new Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, follow the lead of US Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke on trying to deliver a ‘quick fix’ for the economy by boosting asset prices – particularly house prices and stock market levels. But as the Bank of England chart shows, this means trying to return the ratio of house prices to earnings back […]
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