Depression comes to Houston

[concrete]

Third largest chemical company in the US and one of Houston's top employers, goes Chapter 11:

http://netdockets.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/lyondell-chemical-co-files-first-day-motions/

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601084&sid=aR3NWwTwB6iw

It's going to hurt the whole country. Chemical exports are one of the few bright spots in the US trade deficit picture. If this is the beginning of a trend in the petro-chemical industry, there's going to be bread lines from here to Louisiana. We've also got refineries all over town with contracts for 150$ a barrel oil that they can only sell for $1.50 a gallon. The only way for them to get out of the contracts is Chapter 11 too. This whole thing might be going down.

Things are getting ugly.

[Stas1976]

This company was bought by some Russian jerk. What you should expect if company is sold to somebody who has to borrow 80% of money he invests (LBO loan). It was a lousy, stinky deal even without this crisis

[concrete]

This company was bought by some Russian jerk. What you should expect if company is sold to somebody who has to borrow 80% of money he invests (LBO loan). It was a lousy, stinky deal even without this crisis
Well, yeah, that's why they are going first. Companies with better histories are still subject to the same market fundementals that brought Lyondell down, tho, it is not going to be isolated to them, they are just the canary in the coal mine.

[XOM]

Would it be naive to think that refiners holding Nymex contracts for $150 sold them a long time ago? Surely the refiners' buyers are smarter than to hold these contracts to maturity in a market like this? I'm sure they still lost money, but it's hard to believe they were stupid enough to hold all the way down.