Surging prices for plastics are likely to help Exxon’s petrochemicals division post record-high earnings this week when the company reports its earnings. Items like flooring, roofing and packaging all saw demand remain firm throughout the pandemic. This helped keep a bid under the price of the commodity while the “lockdown trade” pulled the rug out from under the bid of other items, like vacations and corporate real estate. Chemical ingredients like polyethylene and polyvinyl chloride used to make plastics have seen record-high prices this year. Limited supply and bottlenecked shipping are adding to the price momentum. Expectations for Exxon’s upcoming earnings report are that the company will show “a radical financial transformation from last year,” according to Bloomberg this week. With higher oil prices as an obvious tailwind, the supermajor is expected to have generated enough cash to pay its dividend for a second straight quarter, moving away from […]