Petrochemicals play a vital role in the economy. The products of the industry are the building blocks in many industries including polymers, synthetic rubber, synthetic fibres, fibre intermediates and basic chemicals. The industry uses a variety of hydrocarbon feedstock such as different cuts of...

Input transactions in the petrochemical industry are often subject to temporal specificity. That is, non-performance in quantity, such as delaying delivery, is highly costly to producers and can be an effective holdup strategy. In the 1970s, two oil price shocks induced high price volatility in...