What should we pay attention to in the chemical industry due to the high crude oil price?

The stock price performance of the chemical sector is affected by both the supply and demand of crude oil and its own supply and demand. In the early stage of oil price rise, the rise of crude oil price driven by demand can be better transmitted to the chemical sector, driving the better performance of stock price. In the later stage, the rise of oil price catalyzed by events may bring more cost pressure to chemical products, and the stock price is weaker than that in the early stage. In addition, The disturbance of the supply of chemicals will also have an impact on the transmission capacity of rising oil prices. Therefore, we need to classify and discuss chemicals in different sectors in order to find chemical varieties with investment opportunities under the background of rising oil prices.

1.2 what is the impact of oil price fluctuations on natural gas and coal prices?

Oil, coal and natural gas are the three major varieties of primary energy. From the perspective of global energy structure, the three account for 37%, 33% and 30% respectively in 2020. In many fields, the three have a substitution relationship. In theory, the fluctuation of oil price will affect the prices of the other two kinds of energy. Next, we will discuss the linkage between oil price and the prices of natural gas and coal, It also analyzes the specific situation of China's natural gas and coal prices under the current oil price.

The price of natural gas is regional, and the correlation with oil price depends on the pricing mechanism. Unlike the global unified pricing of crude oil, the pricing of natural gas has obvious regional characteristics. In the United States, where the natural gas trade is developed, the market-oriented pricing of natural gas is based on the supply and demand of the spot market. Historically, the price of natural gas and oil price in the United States showed a high correlation before 2008 and a low correlation after 2008. The reason is that the shale gas revolution in the United States has changed the supply structure of the two fuels, Abundant natural gas supply decouples us natural gas prices from oil prices, and the volatility is less than that of oil prices. For the Asian and European continents that rely on natural gas imports, due to the lack of mature gas trade market, the pricing of imported natural gas is mainly linked to the oil price, reflecting a strong correlation with the oil price.

Supply and demand determine the price of natural gas, which has strong linkage with coal price under the current extreme market. Although oil prices provide an anchor for natural gas prices in many regions, the final decision on natural gas prices is still its supply and demand. Since the second half of last year, affected by extreme weather and the contradiction between Russia and Ukraine, European natural gas prices have repeatedly hit record highs. Under the background of serious short supply, European natural gas prices have separated from crude oil, only reflected their own supply and demand, and led to a sharp rise in the price of Asian imported LNG from its competitive gas source. In addition, due to the significant increase in the proportion of overseas natural gas power generation in recent years, at the moment of high gas prices, Europe and the United States have gradually increased the proportion of coal power, thus driving the rise of overseas coal prices.