Keep Their Heads Ringin’ – Natural Gas Strength To Pressure Western Chemical Commodity Margins

Daily Chemical Reaction

Keep Their Heads Ringin’ – Natural Gas Strength To Pressure Western Chemical Commodity Margins

Key Points:

• European natural gas prices have surged in 2021, far outpacing the upward move in US prices. We discuss rising energy costs, a flatter global petrochemical cost curve, and risks surrounding Western premium prices.   
• We highlight pertinent chemical sector corporate updates (e.g., Axalta, OQ Chemicals, Air Liquide, Total, Shell, Total, MEGlobal, BASF & other news).  
• We compare US total rail traffic to US chemical rail traffic, flag several relevant consumer demand statistics, and discuss commodity chemical trends.
• We flag several ESG items worth mention, ranging from multiple sector initiative updates to our latest ESG research discussing carbon markets.
• We note numerous other relevant chemical sector items in this report.

See PDF below for all charts, tables and diagrams