Recently in Chemical industry Category

By Fred Seelig/Houston

It's been about two months since we bought our 2006 Volkswagen Jetta - with a turbodiesel engine.

Our European readers will be more familiar than those in the US with what that means: great fuel economy and a motor with internals that should last twice as long as a gasoline engine, but with a higher up-front cost for features - such as turbochargers - that now enable diesels to perform comparably.

This is my first diesel car, but I've long believed that Rudolf Diesel's invention could give both the fuel-saving and environmental benefits, of hybrids, at a fraction of the cost, and with technology that has existed for the past 100 years.

Although diesel emissions are worse for people to breathe in the short run, they're less damaging for the planet in the long run. But with today's cleaner diesel, and cleaner diesel engines, emissions are much improved, and this "alternative" fuel is ready for US prime time, I believe. Green Car Journal even named the diesel Jetta as Green Car of the Year for 2009 - quite a snub to the pious Toyota Prius.

Diesel fuel, while common along US highways, is often unavailable off the beaten path. But I thought I had done my research, finding the nearest diesel-dispensing stations to our home, and even watching their price compared to gasoline.

So, I hate to admit that I didn't quite know what I was getting into. Turbodiesels, it turns out, require special (read: hard to find) motor oils that can simultaneously hold diesel's extra soot, and keep the tiny, delicate parts of the turbo nicely greased. Don't dare take one of these to a quickie lube type of place for an oil change.

And diesel has other issues - like the fact it is easily contaminated with water. Oh, and also by algae, mold and bacteria. No, this ain't biodiesel. Our regular, dead-dinosaur diesel has become contaminated (or should that be "infected"? Or "infested"?) with algae. Like a surgeon saving your gallbladder to show you, the dealership gave me a clear, plastic bottle of my very own diesel, with dark flakes of algae floating in it. The clerk at the auto parts store thought I was crazy when I said I needed a bottle of biocide to kill bugs in my diesel.

Now I know: Before we buy a flat-screen TV, I'm gonna make sure the damn thing can't come down with athlete's foot.

If an industry, group or person was able to reach the 100-year mark, this would definitely be a cause for celebration.

For synthetic rubber producer LANXESS, 2009 is officially the global rubber year as the company celebrated synthetic rubber's 100th anniversary last month in Cologne, Germany. Synthetic rubber was first developed and patented on September 12, 1909, by German chemical company Bayer. LANXESS was formerly Bayer's chemical and polymer business division, which was spun off in 2005.

During the event, LANXESS showed how man-made materials such as synthetic rubber could continue to thrive and remain indispensable for mankind, despite growing opposition from environmentalists to anything made from petroleum.

I was, however, amused when during the event's question-and-answer (Q&A) session, two European reporters boasted of their publications' more than 100-year-old pedigree in their introductions before proceeding to their questions.

Getting into the competitive spirit of whose publication is the oldest, I eagerly raised my hand. Did I have a burning question for the presenter at that time? No, but I also wanted to state ICIS Chemical Business's 138-year history.

I guess the event moderator sensed my intention and quickly wrapped up the Q&A session. Despite the missed opportunity, it dawned on me how LANXESS employees felt being part of a rich 100-year history.

ICIS Chemical Business's history goes back to 1881, when the former Oil, Paint and Drug (OPD) Reporter, based in downtown New York, began its operations. OPD was famous in the industry for its weekly lowdown on actual commercial conditions of the growing oil, paint, drug and chemical markets.

OPD, which then became Chemical Market Reporter, and is now part of ICIS Chemical Business, was able to survive more than a century of volatility within the chemical and publishing industries. Even now, as many print publications are in dire straits, ICIS Chemical Business will continue to evolve and become a better provider of chemical information, insight and analysis as we celebrate our 138th anniversary on October 18.

It is truly a pleasure to be a part of this historic publication and we look forward to our 200th anniversary!

See other old OPD/CMR photos on ICB's new facebook page!

For five days each year, a few fields in a quiet corner of the UK's West Country becomes a throbbing city of 180,000 people. The Glastonbury Festival of the Performing Arts is a national institution. Started in 1971 by a farmer, Michael Eavis, who had an interest in music, it has grown to become Europe's biggest festival.

Whilst there this year, I started thinking about the organisation and economics of this event, plus its wider impact on the local area and on demand for chemicals.  

At a "meet the organiser" question and answer event, a rather stoned-looking man stood up and said he thought the festival had become a model for a new way of living. He was referring to the "Green Fields" part of the event where people seeking alternatives to conventional lifestyles.

Eavis didn't seem too keen on that idea, but said the festival had been called "the acceptable face of capitalism" because he donates around £2m each year to charities such as Greenpeace and WaterAid.

The local economy must benefit hugely from the festival. There were several hundred stalls selling everything from food to clothes to the "ShePee", which I'll leave to your imagination. Of the 180,000 people attending, 40,000 are workers: a major boost to the economy.     

The huge number of tents covering the site must also stimulate demand for the UK plastics industry: or more likely, China's plastics industry.

"Green" is certainly a key theme of the event. Woe betide anyone trying to avoid the queues at the toilets by hiding behind a bush or hedge. A team of "green police" (see video) wearing British Bobby hats coloured green patrol the site, blowing their whistles and chasing offenders.

The figures for waste produced are staggering. In 2008 the festival recycled 49% or 863.32 tonnes of its waste. This included 193.98 tonnes of composted organic waste, 400 tonnes of chipped wood, 9.12 tonnes of glass, 54 tonnes of cans and plastic bottles, 41 tonnes of cardboard, 66 tonnes of scrap metal, 11.2 tonnes of clothing, tents, sleeping bags, 0.264 tonnes of batteries, 10 tonnes of dense plastic and 0.25 tonnes plastic sheets.

This year the festival also used a fleet of New Holland tractors, all capable of running on 100% biodiesel refined from used cooking oil sourced in the UK.

This year I saw fantastic performances from Prodigy, Will Young, Tom Jones and Neil Young plus DJs like Pete Tong and Deadmau5. Don't tell any of my cool friends, but I also loved Australian legend Rolf Harris!

 

By Elaine Burridge

An elegant hotel in a picturesque seaside setting in Helsinki, Finland, was the venue for the annual FECC Congress last month.

Delegates soaked up the sun's rays in the gardens among the ducks and geese while discussing the main themes, namely the current business environment, implementing Reach, and the challenges and issues facing distributors.

Inside, away from the peace and calm outdoors, executives from chemical distributors and their suppliers, were grabbing cups of coffee as they made the most of the networking opportunities.

Despite the downturn and corresponding corporate cuts in travel budgets, nearly 200 delegates managed to attend the two-day event.

If there were two key words to take away from the meeting, then it would be differentiation and focus, or perhaps that should be refocus.

And, yes, although there is plenty for distribution companies to be negative about as their earnings decrease, albeit not as dramatic as their suppliers who are "going through hell at the moment", there were also positive notes.

One CEO emphasized the resilience of the chemical distributor as a business model with high diversification, flexibility and high barriers to entry.

CEOs of private equity-owned firms also spoke out in favor of their backers, trying to rebut the negative image portrayed during the crisis. Whether people were convinced about the advantages of private ownership was open to debate and not helped by the view of one speaker who said that private equity firms are destroying value and exit routes were closing.
Companies spoke too of the need to differentiate themselves, to refocus on their business model and plan for the long term, to get closer to customers, and to act in a sustainable and responsible manner.

As if the worst economic crisis in decades was not enough to cope with, distributors are having also to grapple with Reach (as is everybody at the moment) and forming substance information exchange forums (SIEFs) while time marches on inexorably towards the 2010 deadline. Add to this industry consolidation and migration, transport issues, drastic cuts in credit insurance cover and tightening credit lines, to name but a few.

And in the background is an ongoing antitrust investigation which kicked off in France and Germany in April, 2007, and which still lingers like a bad smell.

So, here's to next year's event in Barcelona, Spain, where hopefully the sun will shine again and the financial crisis, and perhaps the investigation, will be just another piece of corporate history. Just make sure your company survives until then.

Written by Mike Nash

Two weeks ago, the general mood at the International Fertilizer Industry Association (IFA) annual conference in Shanghai was, for me, established on day one. I was having lunch with a French fertilizer distributor, who when not moodily pushing round the food on his plate with his chopsticks, was making monosyllabic utterances about the pretty dismal state of the fertilizer market in general, and his little corner of it in particular. A few Gallic shrugs later, I'd had enough. It was a long lunch.

By the end of day 1 I was pretty miserable too. And I had two more full days of meetings like this. 

I could understand the misery. Last year, everyone was making pots of cash on the back of booming fertilizer prices, driven by high crop prices, and the mood was buoyant. Now, since the collapse in the financial markets, farmer credit has dried up, crop prices are uncertain and the fertilizer market has seen a near collapse. 2008 was already being consigned to history as a never-to-be-repeated aberration.

It was perhaps the spirit of this masochistic misery that I subconsciously allowed the rather scruffy looking man sitting behind me in a hotel coffee shop to expertly steal my wallet.  Talking with friends and colleagues afterwards, it is quite true that, looking back, you realize exactly when it happened. I remember colliding with the suspect when I got up to go to the bathroom, inadvertently hitting him with my chair.

I like to think of myself as fairly savvy. I've traveled to some pretty dodgy places for work and pleasure and this kind of thing had never happened to me before. The lobby of the Shangri La hotel was not a war zone and there were two colleagues sitting at my table. Surely they would notice anything amiss while I walked to the bathroom, leaving my jacket on my chair?

Alas no. About 10 minutes later as I got up to leave and pay the bill, I realized what had happened. It is a sickening feeling. First there's the frantic call home to the wife, waking her up in the process to ask her to cancel all the credit cards. Then there's anger - what good to him is my gym membership card or my pass at the driving range, all of which needed replacing.

Then a curious calm descends upon you. I became quite sleuth-like, asking for CCTV footage - unfortunately the cameras did not cover the exact scene of the crime. Then I retraced my steps through the lobby, looking under tables and chairs, and getting a few odd looks.

This kind of news ripples through a conference pretty quickly. And the hotel bent over backwards to help. This included commandeering the bell boy, Irwin, who accompanied me to the Shanghai police station in the hotel limo.

While much of urban China has "modernized", let's just say its police stations are stuck firmly in the 1950s. It was like a scene out of a film. The police were clearly having fun with the bell boy. Poor Irwin was patiently trying to explain what had happened, but the policeman on the reception desk kept getting up, only to be replaced by someone else. It was clear a decadent westerner losing his wallet was of little concern to them. I decided to remain patient. Any sign of antagonism would only protract the whole process several hours.

After 20 minutes I was finally allowed into an interview room. Bare white walls, bare desks, no natural light. No air con just a fan which kept blowing my passport onto the floor. There was one attempt to lighten the place up. A potted plant stood forlornly in a corner, unwatered for several days.

There followed a painstaking review of what the wallet contained and what make it was. Time and time again my passport was checked. Fortunately, my visa said businessman rather than journalist. Otherwise I'd still be there today.

Then I described the suspect, my version of events as best I could recall them. This took an hour. At no time did any policeman make eye contact, or acknowledge my presence. It was disconcerting.

Eventually, I got what I had come for. A certificate with a crime number on it so I could claim for my losses back home through insurance.

I remained stoically British to the end, I thought, and went to shake the policeman's hand, who looked totally non-plussed, but eventually offered his hand.

Then the police disappeared to input all the data onto their computers. I was left alone with Irwin, who chirpily started talking about Premier League soccer. He was a Liverpool fan, which made it bearable. God bless Irwin (later in the hotel I filled in a card saying how he had "gone the extra mile" to help a guest). He's probably head bell boy now.  

I resisted the temptation to steal a police cap from the rows upon rows of them I was passing as I left. It would have made for a nice souvenir and would have pleased my son no end.

It all certainly made the conference a little more memorable.

Going to chemical-industry events can sometimes be predictable, especially the run-of-the-mill financial results events where you can usually guess in advance which executives, public-relations people and journalists will be tagging along.

But just now and again an event takes you by surprise. I attended the Helsinki Stakeholders' Day and Chemicals Forum in Finland two weeks and have been left with some vivid memories.

In the Commentary Blog  you'll find my impressions of the main event, which will definitely stay with me for a long time.

But outside of the main hall it was some of the people I met from all walks of life who fascinated me.

We all know the chemical industry is international, so we are accustomed to meeting different nationalities when networking round an event. But can you beat this? On my table at the gala dinner were people from Nicaragua, Kenya, Zambia, Ethiopia, Finland and the UK!

The stories they had to tell were also compelling. The Nicaraguan worked for an agency which tested for pesticide residues in agricultural workers there. "Now, I grow my own food and only eat organic," he declared.

The Kenyan worked for a government ministry which attempts to control and monitor the import of pharmaceuticals. He described the constant battle to stem the flow of potentially unsafe generics from China and India.

My Ethiopian friend described in great detail the country's religious history. Christianity flourished there before it hit Europe. Indeed the country still boasts a significant minority of Christians. They practice an ancient form of the belief, with its own traditions and practices.

Perhaps the most interesting, though slightly depressing tale came from Mr Zambia. He was an official with Zambia's environment ministry. Asked what some of the biggest challenges are in the country for his department, the man gave an example which said it all.

Cases of poisoning had arisen in people living in villages downriver of a mine. The ministry investigated and found the mining company had allowed toxic residues to leach into the groundwater and river.

Next, proceedings were begun against the company concerned and a case for prosecution organised. The case was proceeding well until word came "from upstairs" that the case must be dropped immediately. People at the highest level in government were protecting this company and the judiciary were not independent.

Despite this, the Zambian was proud of his country, especially of its free press though he added: "It's a shame they're not interested in environmental issues."

Chemicals journalism is truly a fascinating job.