September 2008 Archives

It may be true that the chemical industry fails to attract a young crowd, but the EPCA youth chapter was out and about in Monte Carlo this week with the enthusiasm of those who can look daisy-fresh on three hours' sleep.

Some old favourite venues appear to have fallen from favour. Adrian tells me that the SassCafe has really gone downhill and is now full of Russian prostitutes. Other youthful types reported back that it was dead on Saturday night, but that the dancefloor at Zebra Square on the same night was home to a much more glam clientele including, allegedly, people coming out of the washrooms rubbing their noses.

An Avestra contingent headed for the more traditional haunt of Jimmy'z and reported it to be well up to standard. The Irish Bar (McCarthy's) was said to be quite acceptable and not much changed from two years ago.

On the way to dinner at Le Saint-Benoit, we pass the dark and shuttered hulk of the former Balmoral Hotel, looming darkly over the bay. This was a haven to past generations from Shell, Integra and then ICIS, famed for its 1950s wallpaper and candlewick bedspreads and fondly referred to as the "Immoral". It plays a proud part in petrochemical industry history.

It came to prominence amongst Shell travellers who were on per diem allowances and could pocket the difference, according to one Shell retiree still well-known to ICIS.

We used to say we were getting the same view as the Hotel de Paris for a quarter of the price.

It closed its doors forever in October 2006, the day after the EPCA conference, and according to the long-time concierge, Mr Ferreyrolles, it was to be redeveloped within its historic shell as luxury apartments. Clearly nothing has happened in the two intervening years, which looks very suspicious. I wonder what the story is here.

One rumour going the rounds at EPCA on Monday was that after the recent merging of the Annual Meeting and the Distribution conference, there was a feeling amongst the EPCA's board members that the event had become too large. According to one well-connected visitor to the ICIS suite, it had been mooted that the event should become more exclusive, and that some sectors would be actively excluded.

The Blog thinks that this sounds like a return to the bad old days when the EPCA would not allow traders to be members, or at least would allow only a restricted quota of long-established traders amongst its more respectable manufacturing members.

This led to the creation of the rival ICPA (Independent Chemicals and Plastics Association) which consisted almost entirely of traders and existed purely to get bargain rates at Monte Carlo hotels and to hold some fine parties on the rooftop terrace of the Metropole Hotel, which were punctuated by rabble-rousing anti-EPCA speeches calling for equal rights for persecuted traders.

So it looks like it's true. As the Blog reported here in June, EPCA is to abandon Monte Carlo, never to return. Next year it's in Berlin, and in 2010 it's Vienna, and after that it will not be coming back, one board member told industry players on the sidelines at the conference.

"It's not the cost," one well-placed source told me in the late afternoon hubbub of the Cafe de Paris on Place du Casino, where most of the tables in the sun on Sunday evening were taken by petchem folks downing an early aperitif or two.

"Vienna is just as expensive, but it's the wrong image," he said, meaning that in the hard times to come, the image of petchem bosses quaffing champagne with perhaps a little lightly grilled seabass amongst the Ferraris and roulette tables of Monte Carlo would be unpalatable to impoverished shareholders and employees.

True, EPCA has asked us to refer more on ICIS news to Monaco than Monte Carlo, concerned that the latter presented an image of frivolity which was inappropriate to the serious business of chemicals.

However, the EPCA booklet in our conference bags has this to say about future venues: "The 43rd Annual Meeting will take place in Berlin from 3 to 7 October 2009. Please note that from 2009 onwards, the Meeting dates will be shifted from the traditional last week-end of September to the first week-end of October. In doing so, we avoid overlap with the Berlin Marathon and the Monaco Boat Show."

So, "Faites vos jeux" - perhaps we have not seen the last of the Principality. And it's not a case of "Rien ne va plus!"

I heard a tale at a cocktail party last night that had the listeners agog. It seems that one senior trader recently left his company in a bit of hurry, and without troubling to clear his desk. It was not clear whether he had left of his own accord or had been pushed, but some time later, a man from head office arrived to tie up the details and to sort out the desk.

In full view of the office, he unlocked the desk and unpacked its contents. To everyone's surprise, he found at the back of a drawer a large package which, when unwrapped, revealed a large pink electrical item of an intimate nature.

After the initial gasps, and because we are all at heart conspiracy theorists, people were asking whether it was actually his own, or whether it had been planted there to discredit him.

I've known people to quit or be fired and then escorted off the premises, but always after clearing their desks - it's part of the deal.

Note to self: must clear out desk.

(Only the colour has been changed to protect the innocent.)

Thank you to the conference friend who has sent me this timely warning to female delegates everywhere.

Oh for the life on the open road. The mist rising off the rolling hills as you plough through the landscape with your truckful of phenol. Will Beacham hitched a ride with a chemical tanker driver across the north of England, from Middlesbrough to Manchester, and lived to tell the tale.

Click here for his article in this week's ICIS Chemical Business.

     Watching the opening of the Ryder Cup, which kicks off today in Kentucky, sets me wondering about golf and chemicals. Why is golf the sport of the international petrochemical industry?

Even as EPCA has axed the Sunday sailing competition this year, and the tennis numbers dwindle away, but the golf event at the Cannes-Mandelieu Old Course Golf Club is still going strong.

ICIS used to organise/sponsor the European Chemicals Open golf tournament which took place every year at the Oude Maas club in the Netherlands. I seem to remember that Michael Lowe, a former ICIS accountant who played off a handicap of 2 did rather well in that one.

But today the European petchem industry is bursting with golf pros manqués. Rumour has it that Mark H at Intermarc, Guy P at INEOS and TJ at ExxonMobil are borderline pro, but that they have instead opted for the glamorous world of chemicals. (Everyone in the MEG business knows that former BMS-trader Mark Sluzny played tennis in the Davis Cup.)

I'm always impressed by the sporting attitude displayed at US golfing events, where some of the players are complete beginners and turn out in the most unflattering shorts. You'd never catch Europeans being so inclusive or so relaxed about appearances. One senior European contact at ExxonMobil in the Netherlands was known to have taken an intensive season of private lessons before he would venture out to play at even his own golf day.

The focus on what Ryder Cup players are wearing, not to mention their Golf Wives and Girlfriends (GWAGs), maybe has a message for petchem travellers to Monaco. If you and your partner want to look your best for the EPCA Photo Gallery   which stays up on the EPCA website for the whole year, not to mention the slide show at the EPCA Luncheon, it's probably time to get your co-ordinated outfits ready now.

The Blog is trying to imagine what it would be like if all the petchem wives had to wear a uniform along with their Spouse's badge.

 Heather in ICIS Houston has sent me a link to her 87 photos of Hurricane Ike devastation in the Houston area. Here are a few of the more spectacular ones.

"They were taken in my neighborhood - League City, Texas. I think the Valero service station is a good illustration of our gasoline situation (messed up!!)" she says by email as the phone lines are still unreliable.

Alfred Wong has sent this photo of the smiling ICIS-CBI China reporting team, standing on the steps outside the offices on a warm autumn Shanghai day.

Ed Cox thinks we need to change our attitudes towards the gas industry and even football ...

Did you know that energy markets have a lot in common with football (he writes)?

Yes, I believe that Premiership football in England shares more than a little with our gas industry, for example. And the ultimate conclusion is that we need to change our attitude towards both.

Just as UK football has opened the door to widespread foreign entry from Russia and the Middle East, so too has the gas market. The former may be seen as a good opportunity for foreign investors, while the latter is nothing less than a necessity for our own businesses and homes.

The likes of Chelsea has succumbed to Russia, West Ham to somewhere in Eastern Europe, with Liverpool stuck between the US and Dubai.

Most recently the ever unpredictable Manchester City was acquired by the mysterious Abu Dhabi Group, which has an estimated wealth of $1 trillion. The size of the funds is incomprehensible but the money is vital: those with now have the chance of succeeding, those without must fail.

My Houston colleague Stephen B shows me a curious spam email which has landed in his inbox. Advertising a Chinese online store, nothing unusual there, it shows a distribution list of 40 names beginning with an S, including Stephen himself, many of whom are in the petrochemical business. And not just in petrochemicals. I recognise a lot of these people, and they are or were in the business of trading European aromatics.

There's Stephane Ernotte, Steve Lyons, Steve Tan, two Stephens at BASF, one at BP, Chemtura, Arkema, Oxea, Albion, Ineos, Grace, Sasol, Harrimans, Invista and many more.

This Chinese purveyor of online goods has somehow accessed someone's email address book. Someone who is in the European aromatics business maybe. That must narrow it down. Who do they all have in common?

Monte Carlo's Grimaldi Forum may be heralded as the new hub of EPCA, but I'm curious to see whether the master plan to shift us all from the Fairmont is going to work.

We've had a couple of previews of the Forum for the Opening Reception and it seems an admirable venue for a party. Look, it was used for the draw for the First Round of the UEFA Cup last week,  the Queens of Egypt exhibition this week, and the Monte Carlo TV Festival in the summer. But I'm wondering whether all the people who make the conference what it is - the delegates, the non-delegates, the hangers on, the shipping guys - will make the trek away from the Fairmont, especially if it is raining.

It's hard to see how the relatively small suites we've all been allocated in the Grimaldi will be a patch on the spacious ICIS suite we had off the main lobby in the Fairmont, where we could set up a full-size Scalectrix table and still have room for tables, PCs and all the ICIS wares on display.

Travel broadens the mind, and it certainly puts you in front of food you've never seen before. "The Omnivore's Hundred" is one foodie blogger's list of 100 things every good omnivore should have tried at least once.

I bet the chemical business travellers who read this blog have tried most of them. Can you beat my (current) score of 71 ??

"I suppose I'd better get my suit out for EPCA," said one US petrochemical conference veteran on the phone to me yesterday. "It's all casual for US conferences, unless you're giving a presentation."

What a sartorial gulf there is between the US and the rest of the world.

Our team returning from the Southwest Fertilizer conference in San Antonio told me that it was all open-necked checked shirts and cowboy hats. And Stephen B in our Houston office tells me that business casual was the dress code at the National Biodiesel Board annual conference and the Renewable Fuels Association's ethanol conference.

But I'm not sure I believe in the all-casual theory of American conferences. It's definitely all suits at the NECA Winter Meeting in New York. And although most of the suits at the annual NPRA conference in San Antonio are sported by Asians and Europeans, I'm sure I've spotted a few suited-and-booted Americans too.

If you've scaled back your wardrobe to just one suit, there's a lot of pre-conference pressure to fit into it. And it seems a bit rash to be stuck with just one suit for both meeting and eating. What if you spill egg down the front? What if you are caught in the torrential downpours which are so much a feature of Monte Carlo conferences?

One shipbroker told me that he had to run out and buy a new suit on the Saturday at EPCA in Berlin last year, because Air France had lost his luggage on the way there. That's all right on the Kurfürstendam, but you don't want to have to do that in the millionaire's playground of Monte Carlo.

I wonder if the world's most famous hockey mom is spending any time right now getting back-to-school haircuts and new shoes for her kids. Probably not, as the Alaskan school term runs from 20 August, but here in London the capital's hairdressers, shoe shops and school uniform departments are full to bursting, with families taking tickets to be served like at deli-counters.

It's also the busiest time of the year for sales of laptop computers, stationery, school bags and all the paraphernalia that students and schoolchildren buy and destroy in the course of the academic year.

But are there any chemicals which benefit from this seasonal upsurge in commercial activity? What about polyurethane shoe soles, solvents for printing, ethoxylates for shampoos?

No, it seems that the only seasons the industry recognises are the summer "driving season" - boom time for gasoline components, "the coolant season" - midwinter strong sales of MEG, "the pre-Xmas candle season" - big news for the paraffin wax business, "the printing season" - peak demand in summer for printing inks for Xmas wrapping paper, and of course the "Sommerloch" or dreaded "summer lull."

Three weeks till EPCA in Monaco, and already everyone's agendas are full. From breakfast meetings with breakfast, pre-breakfast meetings, and standing breakfast meetings, each of the three core days is staked out with hourly or half-hourly meetings. It's speed-dating for the chemical industry.

If you're being asked for a meeting at this late stage, you know you are distinctly B list.

And if you're still looking for a hotel room in Monaco, well you are clean out of luck. One of Julia's German contacts told her that his company would not be attending the conference because hotel rooms were a minimum of €800/night ($1,172 or £649) and in the current business climate this would be sending out just the wrong kind of signals.

Another non-delegate told me he was having to pay €900/night in the Fairmont because all the Societe de Bains de Mer hotels inside Monte Carlo had been tied up by EPCA for delegates. It was that or stay 17 km (11 miles) away in Nice.

So what are the key issues we'll be discussing in all these dawn-to-dusk meetings, apart from the economic doom and gloom ahead? One olefins industry player told Nel he'd have a few things to get off his chest, such as this year's "farces majeures" (sic).

Heeding all the scare stories about identity theft from unwiped hard drives, my son carefully removed the two hard drives. We loaded the PC into the car to go to the "Household Reuse and Recycling Centre (The Tip)", where a man in a little hut recycles salvageable electronic components into his own pocket, and then set about destroying the hard drives.

Click here to see a video clip of a more thorough hammering of a hard drive.