A new play entitled "Enron" will be coming to the London stage in September, and the Blog can't wait to see it. Starring Tim Pigott-Smith as Ken Lay and Samuel West as Jeffrey Skilling, the play at the Royal Court theatre in Sloane Square will be "using music, dance and video to chart the downfall of the US energy company."
The Blog remembers visiting Enron's grand office in London's Grosvenor Place, overlooking the gardens of Buckingham Palace, with its fountain, gym, sweeping blue-carpeted staircase and banks of screens.
Happily most of the former Enron petrochemical traders in London and the Netherlands have made themselves new lives in the industry - Lineke, Stuart, Britta, Jaap, Rob, Roger, Mark, Peter ...
The Blog couldn't help but go to have a look through the ICIS news archives at the articles around Enron's collapse in November 2001 to stir up old memories. Particularly poignant are these pronouncements from the manager of Enron's European plastics and petrochemicals trading desk on their launch of chemical swaps on www.enrononline.com (November 2000), followed by a styrene swap contract in Europe (August 2001): "Companies that hedge against price volatility enjoy extra financial certainty."
(photo: Rex)
At last I've been to see this play, "Enron" and it really is fantastic. It's just opened in the West End, and I recommend it to any petchem folk passing through London.