Days of oil market's plastic fantasy may be numbered

KENYA'S mountains of plastic bags might not seem central to oil's grand narrative, but they are. Last week, the East African country banned almost everything about them: making them, importing them, selling them, using them, with penalties of up to four years in jail or fines up to US$38,000.

This type of prohibition carries a warning for an oil business that's depending on petrochemicals - and the plastics made from them - to pick up the slack when we all switch from gas guzzlers to electric c…