May 2010 Archives

Clive was pushing his baby daughter past the vegetable counter when I bumped into him at the weekend. I didn't know he'd had a baby. "Yes," he said. "The baby was born in the car on the way to Kingston hospital. It was in the local papers."

Clive used to work at ICIS, and we both used make the daily trek from west to south London, until he saw the light and moved to work for another publisher with riverside offices five minutes from our respective homes.

 "Still driving the soft-top?" he asked. No, I told him, it came to an untimely end, and now I've embraced the need for downsized urban motoring.  Like Mma Ramotswe in the No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency, I am now a fan of tiny vehicles.

And so my eyes lit up when I read this article about the T25 in today's Sunday Times Ingear supplement. Designed by Gordon Murray, designer of the McLaren F1 Supercar, it's so tiny that you could park it end-on to the kerb "and because it is just over 4ft wide (8in less than a Smart), three T25 cars can legally park in a standard, single car-parking bay."

For the petchem angle, apart from its phenomenal fuel efficiency (leaving al l that precious crude for the petchem pool), it "has body panels made from recycled plastic bottles, which help to keep the car's weight down to 600 kg - 25% less than a Smart."

Sesame Street characters are used to trick children into enjoying chemistry, in this video preview from the Magic Map Show at Expo 2010 Shanghai. Whatever it takes ...

Chemistry creates good relationships among people, according to this new TV advert from BASF. Watch out for the cute wriggling sushi.

The collapse of a natural gas platform in the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Venezuela was immediately announced by President Hugo Chavez on Twitter.

Despite having previously badmouthed Twitter as a terrorist threat, and having called for more state control over the internet, Chavez has now recruited a team of 200 aides to help him manage his Twitter account, according to this article in the New Yorker spotted by Ben L.

(The Alban Pearl platform sank on the morning of 13 May, after all 95 workers had been evacuated. Venezuela's energy and oil minister, Rafael Ramirez, said there had been a problem with the flotation system of the semi-submersible platform, causing it to keel over and sink.)

Kevin Costner, star of Waterworld and other epics, has been called in by BP to help clean up the oil disaster in the US Gulf.

Costner has patented a stainless steel device called the Ocean Therapy which cleans oil from tainted seawater. The actor has spent 15 years and $26m on developing the machine which sucks up dirty liquid and then uses a high-speed centrifuge to separate it into oil and heavier water, according to this article which Truong pointed out, and many others like it in the international press today.

The "Extreme Oil" cover of ICIS's sister publication, New Scientist, has made it onto the Maggies shortlist - a national poll that celebrates the UK's best magazine covers.

The cover in question was designed by art editor Craig Mackie for New Scientist's 5 December 2009 edition, which led with a feature about the extraordinary lengths to which we will be going to keep the oil flowing for the next few decades.

The cover is one of five that made the shortlist in the Maggies' Specialist category, along with Sky at Night, BBC Wildlife, Geographical, and Linedancer magazines.

The Blog has been along to the Maggies website for a quick vote this morning.

A comedy sketch of a politician being interviewed about an oil spill is going around on Thursday. It's from an Australian satirical TV show in 2007. It's a bit too long for my taste, but still pretty funny.

Some strange photos from APIC have been arriving in the Blog inbox, and it seems a shame to waste them. Avoiding the ash cloud on the return journey, delegates have been returning to their desks and exchanging their key impressions about the event ...

1 One consultant said that his colleague from the Philippines had been unable to get a visa because he hadn't had $100,000 in his bank account.

2 Sweet and milky is the default position for Indian conference coffee and tea.

3 Traders who booked meeting rooms in the main body of the conference hotel had to move from one room to another on each day.

4 APIC had the highest delegate numbers ever: around 1,500 - and non-registered hangers-on doubled that number.

5 Our own John R from ICIS raved about the quality of the DeWitt conference, despite its thin attendance.

6 Congratulations to Etty P on her new grand-daughter.

7 One key industry figure memorably described aromatics traders as behaving "like monkeys in a bag," following up with a request that this shouldn't be quoted on the Blog.

8 One shapely industry publisher was photographed on stage with the Indian dancers at the Farewell Dinner, but requested that the Blog keep it private...

photos:

Renaissance lobby c/o Ashok

Milk van c/o Neil

Roosmarijn Vandeputte, formerly of Oxyde then Noble, has joined trader and distributor Hazel Mercantile Limited. She set up HML Europe BV in April in Amsterdam, she tells me at APIC. Her card shows her title as Director of HML.

I've just read Mahua's article on the growth prospects for aromatics in the Middle East and India, together with this upbeat video clip.

"The happy story [about the Middle East] is that volumes are growing, margins are healthy," said Yogesh Mehta, managing director of distribution company Petrochem, referring to the start up of new plants producing benzene and PX in Oman and Kuwait since 2009. (Extract from ICIS news article)

We are leaving the Information Age and entering the Recommendation Age, our marketing people tell us. The ICIS stand at APIC was covered in testimonials from satisfied customers. Chinaplas delegates gave us some quite touching video recommendations which we are now displaying on the website. 

I see that aromatics broker Excalibur has been thinking along the same lines, and has put a gallery of hilarious client testimonials on its website, evidently filmed at EPCA in Monte Carlo in 2008. I don't know why it has taken me so long to spot them.

ICIS has its first Dubai-based reporter in Yuo Guo, who moved there from our Singapore office two weeks ago and will be taking over the PVC and Solvents Middle East pricing reports in addition to her current Asian reports such as PET and OX.

"We hope to strengthen our pricing and news coverage from this key emerging market with her presence in Dubai," said Steve Tan, managing editor of ICIS Singapore.

Despite all the mixed views about Dubai that the Blog has aired in the past, this is a great step forward for our coverage in the region.

Nadja Weiss of Chevron Phillips Chemicals (CPChem) is to leave her position as Belgium-based Aromatics Manager Europe, Africa and Middle East (EAME) in June.  After 13 years in the industry, including starting out at BASF, she will hand over to Sid Baweja in a three-week transition period, she announced in a goodbye email to her business associates on 12 May.

A robotic fish which detects harmful pollutants using chemical sensors has been developed by UK-based BMT Group.

The sophisticated £20,000 ($29,000) carp "robofish" can swim individually or in shoals in slow-moving water in harbours and ports, and they communicate the data back to the control centre while replenishing their batteries at their charging hub. The robofish will soon be deployed to the coast of Spain, according to an announcement by the company.

Julia Meehan of ICIS London took part in the London Marathon, and survived to write a chemical-related article for ICB. Here the Blog brings you an abridged version...

To wear and what not to wear is a fashion dilemma faced by most modern working women, but in my wildest dreams I did not imagine that I would spend so much time deliberating about what I would wear on Sunday 25 April, the day of the London Marathon.

During my marathon training in the harsh winter months, plenty would be going through my mind.

Would I be fit enough to run the full 26.2 miles (42km)? Would my recurring Achilles injury flare up early on in the run? Would it rain and my feet be covered in blisters as a result? Should I wear my old faithful Asics running shoes or my whiter-than-white yet-to-be-broken-in new pair? What if it was too hot and I collapsed with dehydration? How would I feel when I saw my family at the 19 mile point? Would I reach my fundraising target of £3,000 ($4,512, €3,542)?

I liked "A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian" so much, I read Marina Lewycka's second book "Two Caravans" straight off. It's another black comedy, but now I'm struggling with "We Are All Made of Glue." I thought it would be good for the plane but halfway through, I find I don't care much for any of the characters, which is a bit of a drawback.

Unexpectedly, it qualifies as a Chemical Book because it has chapters called: Adhesives in the Modern World, Bonding Dissimilar Materials, Adventures with Polymers, Biopolymers, Rubber, Polymerisation ...

I can't help feeling that the chapter headings have been written as part of a bet.

More (literary) Chemical Books:

1 James Bond

2 Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

3 The Periodic Table - Primo Levi

4 The Shape of Water

5 Don't Cry For Me Aberystwyth

MUMBAI (Chemicals Confidential)--Bollywood star Deepika Padukone has been a stunning advocate of the saree as appropriate garb at international events, thereby echoing the sentiments of the Blog's own colleagues, I read in the Cannes coverage in the Bombay Times section of the Sunday Times of India on 16 May, which was hung on my hotel door this morning. 

Ever since our own polymers editors appeared on stage at a past Plastindia in dazzling sarees, ICIS editors have been returning from petchem events in India with bags stuffed full of silk and cotton sarees.

Photos

1 Outside the conference hotel, Renaissance Mumbai

2 Joe Chang and John Richardson of ICIS arriving at APIC Thursday

3 ICIS booth at APIC, with Steve Tan

4 Lunch at APIC Thursday

5 APIC speaker panel Friday

Click here for more APIC photos 

And here for all the news on ICIS news from APIC 2010

MUMBAI (Chemicals Confidential)--News circulates at APIC that next year's event will be in Japan. First we hear it will be Yokohama, then it transpires that it will be Fukuoka. One Indian petchem sales manager tells me that the local delegates believe that APIC will not be coming back to India in his lifetime, because they felt the infrastructure had not been up to it and the hotels so scattered.

In the heat of the afternoon, and not knowing how far the Marriott was for an afternoon meeting, we gratefully accept a ride in what I called a tuk tuk. Only in India it's called an "auto," short for "auto-rickshaw" (not a bike-rickshaw) a friend tells me reprovingly.

Then it's back to the Renaissance for another meeting, then off to find a hotel called the Residence. The doorman tells me there are no taxis, but can offer me as a special favour another auto, which is usually only allowed around the conference site. I head off down busy roads in thick traffic in the auto/tuk tuk.

After the meeting I am of course stranded at the Residence. There are no taxis, and none likely to arrive. My hosts are embarrassed. Eventually, someone arrives in a taxi and I jump in to get back and change for the Petrochem party at the Maratha. We sit for so long in traffic that we turn around and head straight to the Maratha. Oh and did I say it was hot?

There is no point in worrying about being late or arriving in the wrong clothes. Everyone is late and in the wrong clothes. It's a great party, but there are a lot of photographers and film crew circulating. Now we will all be captured on film with shiny faces and crumpled clothes.

photos:

1 View from Renaissance lobby, Mumbai

2 Auto rickshaw 

MUMBAI (Chemicals Confidential)--The coolest place to be at APIC in Mumbai is the main conference auditorium, especially in the back rows where a nice chill breeze is blowing across the suited delegates. It's a pleasant relief after the crazy traffic to get here - an hour to do a 10 minute journey from the hotel - and the heated exchanges around the registration desks.

The communal networking areas are a step warmer, but my heart sinks when I enter the lunch marquee and see that it is a stand-up buffet, and as the delegates file in, the temperature rises.

We give up balancing our plates and drinks, and elbow our way to make up an aromatics table. By the time we have finished eating, the men are dripping sweat and we ladies are glowing as our hair turns to ringlets. We laugh at one of our trader friends from Singapore who is clearly not used to hot indoor working environment.

Inside the conference auditorium it's a huge crowd - it looks like a thousand people to me - and the staging is impressive with four big screens running the width of the room.

When I go into the auditorium after the morning coffee break, all the seats are taken. Some people have left, but reserved their seats with the bulky black delegate bags. People Power breaks out and latecomers remove bags so that we can sit down. When people return to reclaim their seats, they find their indistinguishable bags in a pile on the floor, but it's all quite amicable.

For one heart-stopping moment during my pal Vince's styrenics presentation, the sound system packs up - every speaker's nightmare. Within five minutes it's back again. I particularly like his slide of a dog mutating into a cow (dog product turns into a cash cow, gettit?)

MUMBAI (Chemicals Confidential)--Mumbai on my first morning is by no means as chaotic as I've been led to expect. My passage through the airport at 1.00 am this morning was no worse than elsewhere, despite it being 30 deg C outside (in the middle of the night!) with no queue at passport control but a longish wait for the luggage.

I bumped in to David L in the arrivals hall, who told me as we were waiting at the carousel that Petrochem is now the second largest distributor in India and invited me to their APIC party tomorrow night.

The hotel is brand spanking new and it's quiet as the grave at 2.00 am. My room has a glass wall to the shower room and bathroom, which is taking transparency a bit far. While you are in the shower, you can watch TV.

As part of the in-room check-in process, the receptionist takes a photo of me "so that the staff will recognise you." At 2.00 am after a long flight, it is not one of my best. Later my colleagues tell me that none of them had a photo taken on check-in, so that's a bit odd.

Maddeningly, at 2.00 am I have to return a call to the US because with the ten-and-a half-hour time difference there is only a small window to connect.

I wake up at 8.00 am to find we have a new Conservative Prime Minister in the UK. After days of following the negotiations minute by minute, it is unsettling that I missed it.

Click here for John Richardson's opening APIC article 

MUMBAI (Chemicals Confidential)--Siberia is far from featureless and Lake Baikal is unforgettably beautiful, I'm reading in the BA in-flight magazine in an article by John Simpson, famous older TV reporter and advocate of late fatherhood since leaving his first family and starting over again.

I too would love to visit Siberia. In the days when I covered the ICIS styrene report I was often invited to visit Nizhnekamsk, in Russia's internal republic of Tatarstan, the most far-flung of all the styrene plants we cover in the European report. A search on ICIS news brings up seven articles I wrote about the plant, so it was clearly remiss of me to fail to take up the invitations.

Now that Siberia is sometimes being called "The New Middle East," on account of its massive gas reserves, I think it's time to slip on my felt boots and head east.

The Lego Photo app for iPhone poses a serious threat to future sales of real Lego (the perfect petrochemical toy.)

Before you download it and start to enjoy the virtual pleasures of transforming your photos into Lego bricks, spare a thought for your petchem comrades in the ABS business. Today it's Lego, tomorrow the downfall of the whole polymer industry.

My pals in Singapore have been capitalising on the island's strategic position as a staging post for chemical travellers to APIC by hosting a free Methodology Forum there on Tuesday 11 May.

So far petchem folk have been signing up from the Northeast and Southeast Asian industries, but now it seems that a sizable number won't be making the onward journey to Mumbai.

Apparently the Singapore location for APIC in 2008 was so popular that a lot of Japanese and Korean people are meeting up there even when the conference has moved on.

Standing at the heart of the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, the UK pavilion, known as the Seed Cathedral is formed of 60,000 acrylic rods, each containing a seed. The pavilion creates an "alternative world bank."

photo Huffington Post 

Pity the poor children whose mums and dads return from their business trips to China with these fake superhero plastic toys. It's one thing to bring back fake designer handbags, Rolexes and Mont Blanc pens, but what child is going to be taken in by SPADERMAN? Or SPECIALMAN? Or ROBERTCOP 3?

Customs officers in the European Union seized 178 million counterfeit goods in 2008, with counterfeit toys increasing by 136%, according to this article in the Metro.

photos: bestweekever.tv

Much hilarity today in the ICIS London office as the email comes round from EPL announcing that the speaker at the dinner will be a consultant surgeon on gastrointestinal disorders.

He is talking about the funny side of being a surgeon, so some EPL-goers are gaily anticipating gags about wind and bowel problems. Expect some rowdy behaviour from the tables at the back.

ICIS reporter Mark Victory's tale of meeting Eddie Izzard this week fits nicely into the Blog's long-running series on chemical folk meeting the stars. He writes ...

It's Monday lunchtime in deepest darkest Dagenham, in Essex, UK, and I am shaking the hand of comedy legend Eddie Izzard.  The sun is shining and a crowd has gathered. It's a welcome relief from an hour earlier, when four of my friends and I were braving the hailstorms to exercise our democratic right to stick shiny paraffin-wax coated leaflets through people's letter boxes.

Ahead of the UK elections on 6 May, we, along with Eddie, Billy Bragg and scores of other people from all ages and backgrounds are giving up our bank holiday Monday for the " Hope Not Hate" campaign, urging people not to vote for the BNP, for which Dagenham is a stronghold. My four friends and I get to meet Eddie because my friend works for one of the sponsors of the campaign.

The media, though, is out in force, and with cameras and flashbulbs filling the air around us there is little time for more than a handshake with Eddie and a quick photo. We're then whisked away to put more leaflets through more doors so that the television cameras can get shots of the world-class funnyman on the campaign trail.

As we post the leaflets through the letterboxes, we entertain notions of instant fame on the BBC's Six O'clock news bulletin that night.

Our delusions are quickly shattered by one of the throng of photographers. "Sorry," he begins, "but can you just move off to the side, I can't get a clear shot."

Click here for Chemicals folk meet the Stars

(photo: Izzard left, Mark centre)

This is one impressive press release full of wizzy features. It's Shell's announcement about the completion of its integrated oil and petrochemicals production hub in Singapore - with embedded video and some scenic wide panoramic shots of the site.

photo: Panoramic view of the ethylene cracker at the Shell Eastern Petrochemicals Complex, Singapore.

Relive some of the highlights of the Chemical Business Association's 87^th annual Floggers Luncheon, with these "before" photos.

The event, held on Wednesday 28 April 2010 at London's Grosvenor House, attracted 1,035 guests, 180 more than last year, the organisers tell me.

After months of rising chemical prices, it's obvious the mood was quite upbeat.

1 View from the balcony of the Great Room.

2 Jane M, Mark J and Brian W

3 Peter G and David L

4 Andrew D and Martin M

Mr. Mukesh D. Ambani	Mr. Bijoy Chatterjee	Dr. Jagdish Sheth	Prof. Dipak Jain
Chairman & Managing Director Reliance Industries Limited	Secretary (Chemicals & Petrochemicals) Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilisers, Govt. of India	Charles H. Kellstadt Chair of Marketing Goizueta Business School, Emory University, USA	Sandy & Morton Goldman Prof. of Entrepreneurial Studies & Prof. of Marketing Kellogg School of Mgmt. USA

APIC has announced the keynote speakers for the second day of the conference in an eshot to prospective delegates on Monday. Clicking through to the official conference website, the Blog notes that the brochure has been updated as well as the delegate list, which is now showing 934 delegates, slightly fewer than the list we saw last week which had 1028.

Premiership football is an international business and an international language. As UK travellers know, even where English isn't spoken, the names of our top players are known and exalted.

From waiters in Tehran to cab drivers in Shanghai, reciting the names of players along with appropriate hand gestures is what passes for declarations of friendship between our nations.

Now it was pointed out to me on Sunday during the Barclays Premier League match between Chelsea and Liverpool that the Carling sponsorship logo on the Liverpool strip was written in Chinese, in recognition of the huge following the game would be having in China. As chemical producers have long known, China is where the markets are.

Apparently the Chinese logo was a one-off marketing ploy as the game was expected to attract over 750 million viewers around the world and Chinese messages were displayed during the match on the LED perimeter advertising hoardings around the pitch at Anfield.

The messages read "Carlsberg is partner of Danish Pavilion in World Expo - Carlsberg & Liverpool Cheer for World Expo", according to this article. I'm sure my Singapore and Shanghai colleagues will be able to verify that.

Liverpool, which has been twinned with Shanghai since 1999, is the only UK city to be exhibiting at World Expo 2010. I'm very envious of my London colleagues who will be visiting Shanghai in May after APIC - that will be a sight to see. I hope they've got their hotel rooms booked.

(photo: guardian.co.uk)

Reading day after day about the devastation caused by the BP oil spill in the US Gulf, am I the only chemical obsessive wondering what "dispersants" these are, being used on the oil slick, and what "detergents" these are, being use to clean up the seabirds?

Maybe there's an idea for a Mr Nice/Mr Nasty story: bad oil versus good chemicals. Er, maybe not. Timing is everything.

Anyway, I see my Houston colleagues have been thinking along the same lines: http://bit.ly/cegKO9

(Wednesday) I thought it was crazy putting the London ICIS Training on the same day as Floggers, but sure enough the training was a runaway success, so what do I know? For Day Two, the Advanced course, we were sold out, and there was obviously no crossover with the Floggers crowd who were already getting stuck in at the Red Bar and the pre-luncheon hospitality suites while we were still pondering the mysteries of co-product credits.

After my Advanced pricing paper and another fine Novotel lunch in the good company of a Dutch-based Turkish banker, I set off to join the après-Floggers festivities at the Grosvenor House.

Shelley and I had discussed how the key to post-Floggers success would be flat shoes, and so it was. On the sunniest Floggers evening in memory, in the wide open space of the new piazza-style pavement outside Mayfair's Audley Arms, we mingled with the European petchem industry's finest.

In the course of the afternoon, the Blog learnt that:

• Everyone who has ever been to India on business has a detailed digestive story to tell.
• That a couple of hours is considered way too long for styrene monthly contract negotiations.
• That David Little is retiring at the end of the year.
• That Richard L and Barry J are still popping up at Floggers despite being long retired.
• That actress Emma Thompson and her mother live in west Hampstead.
• That long-haired Neil Dudman completed the London Marathon despite having been very ill ever since NPRA.
• That black designer suits are de rigueur for men at German marketers.
• That one industry senior manager cannot watch films or read novels.
• That Jim Ratcliffe's wife's family lives in northern Italy.
• That getting back to the UK by train during the volcanic ash cloud crisis was much easier if you went first class.

See PHOTOS from Floggers (when I get them from Caroline)

(Tuesday) After the first day of ICIS Training in London, we took the scenic walk down the river from Hammersmith Bridge, past the boathouses and pretty waterside pubs, stopping for dinner at the Dove.

The evening had been billed as a Blogging Summit, since it was fortuitous that the training event had brought together for the first time the combined talents of my blogging colleagues Malini and John from Asian Chemical Connections, Paul H from Chemicals and the Economy, Simon R from Big Biofuels Blog and RBI's blogging guru Adam T (himself a Grangemouth chemical sprog), as well as Nigel and Peter from Training.

Adam gave us some tips and filled us in on our own company gossip. I for one learnt how to do a "Reverse DNS look up", not to be confused with a reverse ferret or a reverse cowgirl, and will be looking forward to endless fun looking up owners of ISP addresses.

On the way home, I switched on my Blackberry and saw that Adam had sneakily photographed us on his iPhone while we were looking at the pub menu and posted us on Twitter. (This is all getting a bit self-referential!)

(Tuesday) Doing ICIS Training in London, although dullsville for the Blog in terms of travel, is obviously hugely popular for chemical folk from France, Belgium, Switzerland, Turkey and the Netherlands. They came by train and by plane, even from the distant parts of the UK.

We had a record number of delegates on Tuesday, and had to run two parallel sessions. To cater for the second group we flew in our crack Asian trainers, John R and Malini, hot from their endeavours next door to the Blog on their own esteemed organ, the Asian Chemicals Connections blog.

The hotel location in Hammersmith, west central London was again dull, dull, dull, but had a bright sunny view over the Hammersmith flyover, was brand spanking new inside and provided a very decent lunch including sushi. Even so, I thought the hotel's claim to be handy for Harrods and Buckingham Palace was stretching the truth a bit far.

Only three delegates had to cancel because of the volcanic ash cloud travel chaos, and we were able to rebook them on the Berlin course scheduled for June.

All day long I was hot, cold, hot, cold thanks to some over-generous hotel heating, and had to give my pricing paper twice for the two groups, one upstairs, one downstairs, one without jacket, one with jacket. The first paper was in the pre-lunch slot where I was racing to finish by 1pm, the second in the last slot of the day where I was rushing to finish by 5.15pm. I wonder if anyone noticed that I skipped the bits about inter-product competition for feedstocks and the main problems facing chemical tanker ship-owners. It just wasn't worth it under the time pressure.

They were an interesting crowd and asked some perceptive questions. Roland was taking some photos for the ICIS Training website, and I expect he will let me have a couple for the Blog when he gets back to Singapore.

(photo: ICIS Training team)