I had a chance to speak with Christian LeBroc this morning with regard to curve building for petrochemicals.  As it turns out, Christian left RAC in April and joined the Petrochem Desk as a trader.  Previous efforts at construction of a forward curve by the group have focused on intuition or SWAGs.  Unfortunately, the group had a rough P&L year with at least some of the blame directed toward the forward curve or lack thereof.  When asked about the fundamentals group, Christian indicated that they'd only been around about 3-4 months and are not yet well-suited to curve building.  John Nowlan is indeed the head of the group.   

From a timing perspective, I told Christian that it would probably take at least 6-8 weeks to develop a curve, especially considering the need to understand the key market drivers/fundamentals.  As was suggested yesterday during our meeting, a strong relationship between petrochemicals and a NYMEX component (e.g., crude oil) would provide a great beginning point--we could then potentially strengthen/augment  this relationship with other key factors (e.g., supply and demand terms) borne out of our market research.

Nelson