Rock The Boat – Cost Curve Movements & Outages May Keep Prices Afloat, Squeeze Specialty Margins

Daily Chemical Reaction

Rock The Boat – Cost Curve Movements & Outages May Keep Prices Afloat, Squeeze Specialty Margins

Key Points:

• The global chemical production cost curve has risen during a period of production cuts to deal with oversupply, setting up a potential cost rebound for downstream buyers.
• We discuss Chevron’s decision to repurchase ~20% of its stock and lift its dividend and why energy transition and downstream Capex growth will outpace upstream efforts.
• We highlight Dow, Axalta, Sherwin-Williams, Valero, and other 4Q22 reports and 2023 outlooks, and we discuss a few commodity chemical price developments in 1Q23.
• We add to baseload power commentary in our latest ESG weekly, flagging the recent Form Energy news, and we comment on Dow and Mura Technology initiatives.
• We highlight relative macroeconomic data postings and regional chemical sector demand views, and we note recent US exporter benefits from a weakening US dollar.

See PDF below for all charts, tables and diagrams