Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall – But, It Is Occurring And Known, 1H23 Sector Profit May Beat Low Estimates

Daily Chemical Reaction

Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall – But, It Is Occurring And Known, 1H23 Sector Profit May Beat Low Estimates

Key Points:

• Global chemical market indicators increasingly signal oversupply, supporting negative sector views that could lessen with any 1H23 energy and/or outage-season surprises.
• We highlight natural gas price movements in Europe, Asia, and the US, and we flag the chemical markets most impacted by material natural gas and energy market swings.
• Oversupplied global base chemical and polymers markets have caused operating rate cuts irrespective of cost curve placement in most markets – a quick fix looks unlikely.
• Origin Materials provides an update on the timing of its Origin 1 manufacturing plant, and we also discuss recycling market headwinds and critical mineral tailwinds in 2023.
• Global container freight rates have mostly reverted to 2017-2020 average levels, though the cost of shipping products from Europe to the US remains elevated.

See PDF below for all charts, tables and diagrams