Big Oil is suddenly Big Chemical. For years, the business of turning gas and crude into the chemicals used to make everything from plastic bags to paint has been a mostly unloved corner of the world’s largest oil companies. Now, it’s shining, cushioning companies from Exxon Mobil Corp. to Royal Dutch Shell Plc from the worst energy price slump in a decade. “Chemicals are coming back on to the radar screen,” Simon Henry, chief financial officer at Shell, Europe’s largest oil company, said on Wednesday.

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