March 2010 Archives

SAN ANTONIO (Chemicals Confidential)--Chris F yammers from London to say that following the Twitter feed from NPRA is "almost as good as being there, and without the psychedelic carpet."

The one-liners with the NPRA "hashtag" are supposed to be ephemeral and disappear within a day but, for a brief period only, you can click through to all the twittering from the conference - mostly from ICIS, but also other delegates and followers.

For those readers lacking the strength to click through, the Blog has posted part of the stream below, as well as a new photo of the psychedelic carpet in the ICIS suite, taken early Tuesday morning before the crowds arrive to obscure the artistry of its colour scheme.

The Blog was delighted to hear from ICIS's own techie Amy that she used the photos on the Blog from last year's NPRA to help design the technical layout of the suite this year.

SAN ANTONIO (Chemicals Confidential)--Heather Doyle of ICIS Houston not only carried her camera around at NPRA like the rest of us, but also had the presence of mind to take some photos in the ICIS suite. Here she shares some pics of the Sunday ICIS cocktail reception at NPRA.

1 Heather with industry contact Luther

2 Stephen and Barbara

3 Sunday afternoon cocktail reception in ICIS suite

I bumped into my old friend Charlie Drevna, chairman of NPRA and subject of my pre-NPRA "curtain raiser" interviews in previous years, at the Welcome Party on Sunday evening. He was keen to tell me that the previous communications manager, who had never shown a great fondness for the Blog, was gone. The new incumbent, who will take over in April, will be someone the Blog will enjoy dealing with, Charlie said, and that was very welcome news.

NPRA had previously informed ICIS that the official attendance for this year was slightly up on last year at 2,400-2,500, and the lobby of the Marriott Rivercenter (photo) was definitely busier than last year.

After the Welcome Party, the Blog headed for the India Evening, where the great and good were entertained to an evening of presentations and a very late dinner of curiously non-Indian food, as part of the promotion for the next APIC conference which will be held in Mumbai. The Blog is now the proud owner of a lapel pin of the interlinked flags of India and the USA, and a rather stylish silver Sabic pin - both the subject of much envy amongst traders later in the Hyatt bar.

SAN ANTONIO (Chemicals Confidential)--I hear there was a bit of a kerfuffle at the Welcome Reception at NPRA on Sunday evening, when one delegate was smoking a cigar next to the buffet carvery counter.

The Blog has written before to deplore the occasional outbreaks of poor etiquette in the petchem industry (Oops, I am turning into Peter Demetriadi here.) How could readers forget the infamous insult upon this writer's person of the one-coffee lunch? Why only last week the whole ICIS London editorial team was outraged after two editors were invited to visit a large industry player in a pleasant forested location in the south of England, and upon arrival found that their host had chosen to be elsewhere for the day.

An insult to one of us is instantly an insult to all of us. Offence is promptly taken.

The following day it emerged that there had been a misunderstanding, apologies ensued and everyone calmed down. As Mr Punch* says: "That's the way to do it."

*British cultural reference to seaside puppet show, to be declaimed in a squeaky voice.

More NPRA gossip and trivia:

1 Bright new eyes for NPRA

2 Best conference jokes

3 Managing expectations at NPRA

4 Houston location for Crazy Heart

5 Charlie Gibson at NPRA Luncheon

6 Miss NPRA Pageant 2010

What's the hottest new trend amongst NPRA delegates this year? Yes, it's corrective laser eye surgery.

The Blog has come across three men who have recently ditched their glasses and contact lenses to emerge blinking into the image-conscious new world of improved vision. It's not an avalanche but in the shinking pool of the Blog's industry acquaintances it is sufficient to constitute a trend.

It's interesting that it's all men. Perhaps the women are investing in other enhancements.

Two other delegates slipped away from meetings to get their teeth whitened in the Rivercenter Mall at lunchtime. What a vain bunch we are.

Click here for previous trends: tattoos...

SAN ANTONIO (Chemicals Confidential)--Sunday afternoon at NPRA is when ICIS has its cocktail reception, nicely timed to be after the golf outings and before the official conference Welcome Reception. So the suite was full of subscribers, editorial contacts, ICIS staff, former staff, competitors, passers by, family members but without the usual Canadian guys in red sweatshirts from the Alberta Economic Development suite next door - all enjoying the food and drink, helping themselves to reports and freebies.

In previous years the hotel supplied us with Tom the barman, who mixed a mean pink margarita. He told everyone the recipe was a secret, but I can exclusively reveal that the pink was grenadine and it wasn't very secret since he poured it in front of them. It was a bit on the sweet side, if you ask me.

At one point in the afternoon, I count seven competitors in the suite enjoying our hospitality in a brief flowering of the spirit of détente. Gone are the days when a former manager called security to eject a former employee competitor. How I miss the drama.

The leading lights from the European chapter of ICIS news - Lewis, Nigel, Graeme - took to the road to drive from Houston to San Antonio on Saturday afternoon.

Says Lewis: "On our journey from Houston to San Antonio we made the difficult to decision to drive a few extra miles to the Spoetzl Brewery in Shiner for some free beer.

Visitors can sample four Shiner beers. I think the idea is to get you drunk enough to buy some of the overpriced souvenirs.

All the beers were very nice, but Shiner Blonde was my favourite.

We weren't the first ICIS visitors on Saturday. We noticed Stephen Burns' name in the guestbook from a couple of hours earlier."

SAN ANTONIO (Chemicals Confidential)--The Southeast Chemicals Association is the newest of the US industry groupings, I hear from my friend Kathy H on Sunday morning at NPRA. It's news to me, although it's been going for about five years, following in the footsteps of Southwest Chems and NECA.

The SECA guys meet at the Marriott Grand Dunes Resort, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and my colleague Stephen Burns will be speaking to their next meeting on 10 June, on developments in global petrochemical markets. "It's the world capital of golf, a pretty swish resort, you can walk straight out of the hotel onto the beach," he tells me in the ICIS suite in a hoarse whisper, having lost his voice just in time for the conference.

It was good to catch up with a friend now exiled in Saudi, and another who lives a caged existence in Equatorial Guinea. On the catering side, the Blog restaurant reviewer gave full marks to the guacamole and the chocolate covered strawberries, and the Kolmar ice sculpture was pretty impressive, even when half-melted.

SAN ANTONIO (Chemicals Confidential)--The best jokes I remember from recent chemical industry conferences:

Andy Nicholson tiger joke

Two friends are out walking in the forest. Suddenly, one of them spots a tiger that looks both hungry and angry.

The other friend sits down, and puts on his running shoes. Seeing this, the first guy says, "Do you really think that these shoes will help you out-run the tiger?"

And his friend replies calmly "I don't have to out-run the tiger. I just have to out-run you."

Sim Elman rubber joke

What do a tyre company and 365 used condoms have in common?

"Goodyear."

SAN ANTONIO (Chemicals Confidential)--Public speaking is often rated as one of life's most stressful events, right up there with divorce, bereavement and moving house.

It's easy to say that training and practice make it less of an ordeal, but it's often the case that the boldest of people are reduced to terrified wrecks by the prospect of speaking.

There are a few obvious techniques, like remembering to breathe, slowing down, looking at the audience, having a decent presentation and rehearsing - but chemical industry conferences seem to have a few hazards which are peculiarly their own.

I was once left stranded at the speaker podium at a Houston conference, when the anti-trust lawyer who was giving the introduction walked off with all my notes to introduce the conference and the chairman.

From watching a fair few conference presentations, I'd like to share a few tips which may spark some reminiscences ...

• Don't use the red light pointer unless your hands are rock solid, or the dot will be bouncing around all over the screen for all to see.
• Don't write your paper that morning (yes you, Nick)
• Don't tell the audience you wrote your paper that morning (ditto)
• Do put in lots of colour photos - and videos are still enough of a novelty to always be a winner (especially if accompanied by stirring Iranian music and waving flags)
• Don't show graphs which other speakers have already shown
• Do introduce or intersperse with jokes (see Best Conference Gags posting below)
• Don't be eating while you are speaking
• Don't show data which is two years old
• Don't show slides which are not in the handout
• Avoid the graveyard slots of just after lunch, or last speaker of the day
• Do wave your arms and walk around - it breaks up the day
• Do bring a spare set of notes

I'll be keeping a keen eye on the speakers and chairmen at the NPRA sessions to see what trends in presentations are emerging in 2010.

SAN ANTONIO (Chemicals Confidential)--As the beers are being chilled, the buffets piled high and the name badges laid out in alphabetical order, the first guests are edging warily into the opening parties of NPRA 2010.

To get petchem folk in the party mood, the video channel of the European Commission, EUtube, has produced a video "Chemicals having a party."  Tune in for "sexy carbons, bored noble gases, explosive reactions."

Look out for the strong hydrocarbon attraction scene ...

SAN ANTONIO (Chemicals Confidential)--I've just come across a video version of the song "Slow Chemical" sung by cartoon character Spongebob Squarepants. The song by the Canadian rock group, Finger Eleven, has also been adopted by WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) wrestler, Kane, but that video is a bit bloody for a corporate Blog. If you want to sing along, click here for the lyrics. 

SAN ANTONIO (Chemicals Confidential)--Anyone selling chemicals into printing inks is going to be concerned to hear that switching a company's default font on an e-mail system from Arial to Century Gothic will save money on ink when printing out e-mail messages, according to an article in the US newspaper USA Today, which my Houston hotel kindly left outside my door on Friday.

The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay has found that the new font uses about 30% less ink, when printer ink costs it about $10,000 per gallon.

The association is complaining that despite low oil demand and huge over-supply, prices are continuing to rise due to "the return of massive speculative investment in oil markets ... The volume of oil traded on paper being as high as 22 times greater than the volume of oil consumed." It calls on the US Congress to re-establish strict position limits on energy commodities, and encourages Texan fliers to visit stopoilspeculationnow.com.

SAN ANTONIO (Chemicals Confidential)--Chemistry academics have scoured London to offer work to a man who paints tiny pictures on discarded chewing gum, according to a BBC News article which Lara has sent to the Blog on the Saturday morning of NPRA.

Clearly not sharing the Blog's distaste for chewing gum, the UK's Royal Society of Chemistry offered a reward of £117 to the first person to put them in touch with artist Ben Wilson. They wanted him to paint miniature depictions of the 117 known elements to promote conservation, after a society member spotted Wilson last week, painting on some hardened gum in London's Piccadilly. Yuk, yuk, yuk.

(photo: BBC)

HOUSTON (Chemicals Confidential)--Impressed by the Blog's slavish coverage of conferences, particularly ICIS conferences, reader Peter Gerrard sends this cartoon ...

The Blog's Chief Gas Correspondent, Ed Cox of ICIS Heren, has been fraternising with the aristocracy and pondering sartorial issues. He writes:

One thing about working in the Central London office for ICIS Heren is that you can just pop out for a quick press conference at extremely short notice. So when an email popped into my Inbox yesterday revealing just such an event involving the former master of UK political spin, Peter Mandelson, I thought I would pop along and see what the fuss was about.

With the election looming the government is desperate to be seen promoting British industry so Labour was always going to jump on the back of news that one of the biggest offshore gas developments in years had been agreed. Mandelson and the Secretary of State for Scotland Jim Murphy wanted to shake the hands of France's Total who will lead the bold project to source gas from the remote West of Shetland area and bring it to our onshore network.

So, I set off for Westminster, pen in hand with only rolled-up sleeves and an old pair of jeans for company. I liked to think I looked a proper journalist but clearly I came across as the schoolboy in the corner of the staffroom. Where all the staff are wearing suits and ties.

HOUSTON (Chemicals Confidential)--Doing a spot of late night shopping last night on arriving in Houston, I was struck by this pro-petchem billboard campaign at Old Navy (the value arm of Gap): Lights, Camera, Plastic.

You stand next to some plastic mannequins in the store, "Pose With The Plastic Pros", get a friend to take a photo of you, and send it off for a chance to become "The Next Supermodelquin."

HOUSTON (Chemicals Confidential)--It's early days but the famed ICIS European Aromatics Conference for 2010 has just signed up its first speaker and first sponsor. My conference co-planner Paul Hodges emails me with the details of the sponsor he has tied up as I am getting off the plane in Houston.

I was just telling Nel about my first speaker (a major Mediterranean producer)when she found that she had secured a first speaker for the 2011 Olefins Conference - with the ashes of the triumphant 2010 Olefins Conference scarcely cold (unfortunate metaphor.)

Here we go, here we go, here we go ...

HOUSTON (Chemicals Confidential)--David Pappie has returned to Shell Chemicals, this time as General Manager Commercial Excellence, after a five year stint as VP Recruitment for Shell, the Blog hears from a passing stranger in the arrivals hall of Houston's IAH airport on Wednesday afternoon.

Before his break in HR, Pappie was a well-known fixture in the European styrene community, and was once kind enough to take the Blog (in pre-Blog days) on a guided tour of the styrene plants of Moerdijk. He once gave a paper at an ICIS Styrene Conference in Singapore in 2000.

His new role which he started in January 2010 is based in Rotterdam.

See also: David Byrne leaves Shell

HOUSTON (Chemicals Confidential)--How to keep a business traveller happy? First leave us guessing up until the very last minute whether our BA flights to Houston for NPRA will be cancelled on account of the strike. Then just as despair is beginning to set in, confirm the outbound flight but not the return. Wait until the very eve of travel, then confirm the return flight, but note that there will be no hot food on board.

On the day itself, take off on time, with plenty of staff and a reasonably full plane, and then pull the final rabbit out of the hat and serve hot food throughout the flight.

Result: one deliriously happy traveller. What an object lesson in managing customer expectations.

If only I had taken this route in informing ICIS editors and subscribers of the imminent rollout of the new enhanced design of the pricing reports. First, warn them that they're not likely to get their reports ...

"Dirty Oil," a new anti-oilsands film has come out this week in the UK. It shows that most of America's oil comes from Canada, "the new Saudi Arabia," from open-cast mining of tar pits. Starring Neve Campbell, it is an expose of the pollution of the environment in Alberta, where the tar sand development has poisoned the land and rivers. I wonder if this will be showing on the longhaul flight to Houston today.

Click here for a one-minute movie trailer

Does anyone in the chemical industry still have a Palm? There was a year in the mid-1990s when a few traders were showing them around, but now the Blackberry has dominated the petchem landscape.

Palm is struggling to survive, after its first quarter sales of Palm Pre and Palm Pixi were less than half analysts' expectations, and its market share and share price are tumbling, according to an article on today's FT.com.

Palm's smartphones have faced unbeatable competition from RIM's Blackberry and Apple's iPhone, leaving the company's shares down nearly 60% over the past year.

PS One Europe-based chems trader has already messaged to contradict me: "Well we all use Palm Treos or similar," he says.

(photo Palm Plus)

"Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" is the sequel to every chemical trader's favourite film and due out in the US in September 2010. The trailer is showing in cinemas now, with one lingering shot dwelling on the famous brick-sized mobile phone from the original.

The original Wall Street, made in 1987 has some classic lines, frequently repeated in trading circles, like "Greed is Good," "Lunch is for Wimps," "What's worth doing is worth doing for money." And the less obvious quiz tie-breaker, "Blue Horseshoe loves Anacott Steel."

Barbie has long been a favourite Blog petrochemical toy. Now Mattel has announced that it will release a new set of Mad Men Barbie Collector dolls in July, immortalizing in plastic the gorgeous and stylish characters of Don and Betty Draper, Roger Sterling and Joan Holloway, according to an article in the New York Times.

The only drawback is that none of the dolls looks anything like the characters, neither in face nor body. And they'll set you back $300 for the set.

As the Aqua song goes: "I'm a Barbie girl, in a Barbie world, Life in plastic, it's fantastic!"

More Barbie on the Blog:

Barbie Foosball Table

It's a Barbie World

Arkema's new webzine Enovmag has a video on PMMA (polymethyl methacrylate) and some sexy French designers, posted on Twitvid on 19 March and spotted by Doris.

A revolutionary plastic folding plug has been named Design of the Year, beating nearly 100 other entries in a competition run by the UK's Design Museum, and reported on its website yesterday.

Its inventor is Min-Kyu Choi, 29, who developed it while he was a student at the Royal College of Art. It transforms itself from a bulky three-pin plug into a portable, hassle-free plug ideal for people on the go. When not in use, it is a 10 mm-thick flat object.

(photo of plug in seedy setting: Business Week)

ICIS editors had a look round the construction site of Sasol-Huntsman's new maleic anhydride plant in Germany yesterday. Says Mark V, editor of the ICIS maleic report:

"I've just returned from visiting Sasol-Huntsman's MA plant in Moers, Germany. Building work is well under way on the 45,000 tonne/year expansion at the site, due to begin production on 19 January 2011. The construction looked impressive, even if the intricate pipe-work and towering steel structures did vaguely remind me of slides at a water park."

(photos: Sasol-Huntsman)

The idea of a Lego Blackberry somehow symbolises the petrochemical trading life, combining both the perfect petrochemical toy and the industry's preferred means of communication.

Now Lego artist Nathan Sawaya has been commissioned to produce a replica of RIM's Blackberry Tour. It was a challenge to build one with a screen that really worked, according to a posting on Sawaya's blog this week. He solved this by embedding a flat screen TV into the little ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) bricks

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for Materials Science and Engineering have discovered the key to silk's pound-for-pound toughness, which exceeds that of steel, according to the journal Nature Materials and reported today in an article on Nanowork News, one of the Blog's favourite morning reads.

The scientists found that an unusual arrangement of hydrogen bonds play an important role in defining the strength of silk.

"Hydrogen bonds, which are among the weakest types of chemical bonds, gain strength when confined to spaces in the order of a few nanometers in size. Once in close proximity, the hydrogen bonds work together and become extremely strong."

(photo: Nanowork News)

It was Mother's Day weekend in the UK, and so we had a gathering of all The Mothers, including grandmothers, subverting the idea of Mothering Sunday by going out for our family dinner on Friday.

The dinner had its moments, largely due to the participants having varying degrees of mobility. And it had to be on the Friday because one of the grandmothers had a prior social engagement on the Sunday. The other grandmother caused chaos at the table by having to borrow the waitress's reading glasses and then being called on her fancy new mobile in the middle of the meal. Grannies today are so irresponsible.

By Saturday, family members were reporting that the high street was thronged with dads taking small children out shopping, and that fly-by-night flower stalls were springing up in pub car parks, meeting the sudden but not unpredictable demand for small bunches of daffodils and tulips (the only acceptable gifts at this time).

The big supermarket chains had prices slashed for unsightly mixed colour bouquets, and by the afternoon, a hot £1 coin could buy you only a bunch of tightly furled buds, all the open blooms being sold out. Supply and demand in microcosm.

(photo: Rex)

The planned British Airways strike at the end of March is galvanising UK petchem folk into booking up alternative flights to and from NPRA. With the strike set for 20-22 March and 27-30 March (inclusive), it couldn't be worse timing for conference-goers planning to get from London Heathrow to Houston on their way to NPRA's IPC conference on 28-30 March 2010.

Disgruntled petchem Twitterers have been venting their wrath ...

"British Airways has chosen the worst possible days for its strike plans ... they picked exactly the right days for NPRA ..."

"Classically, BA says you can cancel now, but NOT once they do schedule on Monday...by which time other airlines will be full."

"British Airways strike will leave me stranded in Houston, Texas. Come on Mr Walsh, sort it out."

BA said on Sunday that the flight schedules would be confirmed on Monday, and were directing complaints to the Q&A page on ba.com.

Jeff Bridges' film "Crazy Heart", the story of the redemption of an alcoholic country singer, showcases the landscape of Texas and petchem capital Houston, and won Bridges an Oscar for Best Actor.

For fans of the NPRA road trip from Houston to San Antonio, there are plenty of picturesque shots of wide open spaces, some views of what must be the tree-dotted Hill Country, and one stock shot of the Houston skyline. Given that my knowledge of Houston is somewhat limited, I didn't recognise the street scenes in the residential area of the city where the travelling singer sets up home, but they looked pretty much like the areas you glimpse alongside the main freeways. And despite a passing acquaintance with the shopping malls of the city, the mall where the movie's disastrous turning point takes place didn't look at all familiar either. Maybe a Houston reader could fill me in on this.

(PS See Debi's comment: the scenes which were supposed to be on the road in Texas and in Houston were actually filmed in New Mexico, so no wonder they didn't look familiar!)

(photo: Rex)

The Chemistry Council of New Jersey and American Chemistry Council Members sponsor the 4^th annual essential2®life 5km race in Liberty State Park, Jersey City, New Jersey, USA on 10 April 2010.

The race is presented by regional member companies of the ACC and the Chemistry Council of New Jersey, to benefit the American Red Cross and raise awareness about the chemical industry and its impact on day-to-day life.

According to the essential2®lifewebsite: "Participating companies include: BASF Corp.; Brenntag North America; Church & Dwight Co., Inc.; Croda; Elemica; Honeywell and Rhodia Inc."

(photo: Chemistry Council NJ - essential2®life 2009) 

The new BASF TV ad campaign has all the Blog's favourite ingredients: music, good voiceover, children, ballroom dancing, sushi, playing snooker/pool, swimming pools with chutes, wheatfields, cars, flowers and chemicals. Thanks to Doris (newly promoted to senior editor) for spotting this one.

Click here to see the advert on the BASF Chemical microsite.

(Also search under "Adverts" to see Top Chemical Adverts numbers 1 to 9)

Nick King has joined Lotte Chemical UK as PTA Commercial Director effective from February, he tells the Blog via Caroline.

Most recently, he set up Cloonacool Consultancy Ltd and worked closely with the Kolmar Group after the demise of Artenius UK, where he had been PTA Sales Director.

Says Nick, "Having met virtually all the major European PTA consumers in the last couple of weeks in my new role as PTA Commercial Director for Lotte Chemical UK, I have been encouraged by the warmth of welcome for the new company and am confident that the Wilton PTA plant will be making and selling product during April."

Click here for Caroline's ICIS news article on Lotte restarting Wilton PTA.

Ralf Kuhlmann, Business Director Basic Chemicals Europe at ExxonMobil Chemical Europe, retired on 10 March 2010. The role will be taken over by Juhan Robberts.

"Yesterday was the last day of a monument in the chemical industry," a trading friend writes to the Blog on hearing of this change.

The Blog remembers that Ralf Kuhlmann gave the keynote address on competitive feedstock advantage at the ICIS Third European Aromatics Conference in November 2004 in Antwerp.

Kuhlmann was also succeeded as chairman of the APPE (Association of Petrochemical Producers in Europe) by Huub Meessen of Sabic,  in January 2010 and reported in this article on ICIS news at the time.

An Italian subscriber writes to show a photo of an ICIS/IFA Fertilizer Trade-Flow Map which he found in Qatar on a business trip to a Qafco bagging facility at the beginning of March, after the Nitrogen Syngas conference in Bahrain.

To paraphrase the Carling ad, it seems that ICIS Maps reach the parts that other maps just can't reach.

ICIS's own Antonella Harrison was also in Bahrain for the conference, and sends this photo of her out at dinner with a group of delegates from Italian fertilizer construction and equipment companies, showing "the power of women in raising ICIS' profile," as she says.

A boat made entirely from plastic bottles and recycled waste products is to set sail from San Francisco to Sydney, on a 12,000 nautical mile journey to study the marine environment, according to this article which Blog reader Judith B came across via CNN on Wednesday.

The Plastiki Expedition in April 2010 will include four scientists from the Scripps Research Institute, and will sail through the Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch, which the Blog has written about here before.

According to the article, the Plastiki "is a catamaran made from 20,000 plastic bottles injected with CO2 packed into pontoons. The pontoons are strapped to a rigid plastic tube running the length of the hull, and they've assembled the whole thing without glues or resins, so when the trip is over, the entire boat is recyclable."

After Lara's comment about the Gorillaz album "Plastic Beach," there is a sudden resurgence of interest in chemical songs.

Thanks to James for reminding me of John Hiatt's song "Ethylene," with its chorus:

Ethylene, my Ethylene
My love for you is just obscene
My deer you dress
My fish you clean
But you are nowhere to be seen
My Ethylene

Click to hear the chorus

I'm in Brussels for the ICIS Olefins Conference yesterday and the EPL today. With the conference sold out two weeks in advance, the place was heaving with people. We had standing room only in the conference room, and almost every seat taken at the lunch yesterday. Afterwards there were lots of compliments for the quality of the speakers, and especially the timing and location, which were ideal for the regular EPL-goers.

I managed to take a few pics in the conference but once again they look like they were taken from a speeding car. The photo here is of the panel of speakers on crude C4s, with the back of Gina's head in the foreground. The speaker podium was unusually high, and when I stepped up to introduce the conference, it was like climbing onto a table in front of 130 people.

I learnt one new word: "glocalized." I will aim to use it in one of our EPL meetings today. And another lovely expression: "cash bleeders at the bottom of the cycle."

Loyal conference chairman Barry H had his work cut out keeping the proceedings running on time, as every speaker and question session seemed determined to run over its slot. I noticed that he managed to restrain himself from using too many rugby-related expressions, and he made the lively Q&A sessions look spontaneous, which is quite a feat. In his introduction, he remarked on the cosy seating arrangements by suggesting we all turned to our neighbours to say hi.

One recurring theme I hear from our industry speakers is that it takes a long time to get their presentations approved internally, by management and by legal. One speaker told me that it had taken weeks for his presentation to go the rounds, and that he had been particularly delayed by the need for his paper to be branded in the right colours.

(See ICIS news for the highlights from the conference papers.)

Jay Cho has joined traders Vitol in Singapore, he announced in an email to contacts on Sunday 28 February.

Cho, formerly an aromatics trader with Interchem and Samsung will begin his new role on 1 March 2010.

Vitol was a sponsor of the recent ICIS 8^th European Aromatics Conference in Amsterdam.