February 2011 Archives

Joachim Schaefer, who left Arpadis in January, has joined Meerbusch, Germany-based Novesia Mineralölhandel, he told Truong on Friday.

He is looking after styrene and his regular petrochemical markets, he said.

I first heard someone ordering an "Irish Car Bomb" cocktail in Durty Nellie's, an american Irish bar in San Antonio, Texas during NPRA a couple of years ago. It was shockingly sobering to have the maimed bodies of Omagh conjured up in casual humour and an unpleasant demonstration that plenty of people still find other countries' terrorism entertaining.

The drink is a pint of Guinness, with a Jamesons top, and a shot glass of Baileys dropped into it so that the whole drink explodes over the glass.

Last week when some colleagues were out at a local pub, someone tried to order an Irish Car Bomb, and the barman refused to serve him. Apparently we have longer memories in London, especially those of us who grew up in the Irish suburbs of north London.

I see there is already a "9/ll" cocktail, but I don't think that will be on the menu at Durty Nellie's.

(photo: Rex) 

It was a pretty good day yesterday. First there was a morning meeting with an aromatics major player with Truong followed by a pleasant lunch on the South Bank. Then over to the massive Base Oils Conference in Lancaster Gate, followed by an early dinner at the Saatchi Gallery and in the evening a Paul Carrack concert at Cadogan Hall.

He still has a great voice and every song was a belter - Eyes of Blue, Always Have Always Will, etc. There was even a spot of singalong and dancing during the encore.

Meanwhile 540 base oils delegates were out on the town in London.

The 15^th ICIS World Base Oils & Lubricants Conference opening in London this morning has broken all records for base oils conferences and ICIS conferences in general.

More than 540 people have signed up, so the registration desks at the Lancaster Gate Hotel are going to be a huge operation - more hectic than registration at the much larger EPCA and NPRA conferences because the whole number will be wanting to be processed through within the hour before the official opening speech.

At 540, that's 130 more than last year.

All the global ICIS base oils editors will be there - from London, Singapore, Shanghai and Houston - and each of them will be doing an address to the delegates at some stage during the two days, either introducing or thanking the speakers. The Blog will be there for a few papers, just to see what is going on.

Restructuring and rationalisation in the petchem business provides plenty of scope for consultants of all kinds to move in and sell us the benefits of their wisdom and experience.

The Blog has more than a passing acquaintance with a few petchem consultants, as fellow bloggers or co-organisers of conferences, or publishing consultants to our business.

In fact ICIS itself now has its own fully fledged consultancy operation since the majority acquisition of CBI.

But what do management consultants do? The commonly held view is that they come in, ask you about your job and what you would do to make it better, then they sell your own advice back to you, and charge a lot of money in the process.

And then sometimes they go away and write a play about it.

"The Consultant" opens in London on 23 March 2011, written by an erstwhile editorial consultant to ICIS. It is "a Faustian tale for the age of austerity."

The Blog will be there to witness this, flanked by supportive co-workers, but not on the opening night, which is cunningly set during NPRA week.

Watch this space. [Insert scathing review here ...]

Trader Brian Lee has resigned from Samsung and is taking a break.

After his most recent role trading aromatics in Europe, he has moved back to Asia, according to his friends.

From four days of ICIS training in London, some good photos of the speakers and delegates have reached the Blog. Here are a few, and the full 20 will be posted on Monday on the ICIS training website.

Will the Aromatics 2011 conference be in Amsterdam or Prague?

Voting is "too tight to call," Michelle in our conference team emails me this afternoon.

It's 18 for Amsterdam, and 17 for Prague, with 2 selecting "no preference."

In the end we had to discard the suggestion from one of last year's delegates to hold it in Hawaii.

Voting closes at 5pm today, a deadline arbitrarily set by Michelle in her polling of last year's delegates, and I am keeping my fingers crossed for Prague.

ICIS Training seminars are in London this week. When I arrive on the second of four days, I am greeted with the news that it is a good group and the food is fantastic.

It's a bright spring day (see photo of crocuses on the green today), and some delegates tell me they are taking advantage of the good hotel rates to see the London sights. I don't recognise any of the delegates, but in the way of the petchem industry, it's a small world so we all know someone who knows someone ...

I'm paying special attention to Nigel's papers on the changing world of chemicals and regulation, as I'm expecting to have to cover these for him later in the year.

Julia gives a spirited rendition of the pricing paper, throwing in some interesting stuff about Chinese ghost towns and flat screen TVs.

There's a lively debate about REACH, of all subjects. This is usually a topic which sends everyone to sleep, but today we are gripped by the conflict between human values and economic risk.

(Photos from Taru to follow on Friday ...)

The oil industry's flagship TV drama series, Dallas, is set to return with a revived cast including Larry Hagman (79) from the original 1970s series.

Since the Blog never followed the original TV soap opera - but does remember the suspense of "Who killed JR?" - it is at a loss to understand why the show is being brought back.

Is there a new generation clamouring for more glitzy oil-related family intrigue on TV?

Is there a shortage of new ideas for non-crime TV series?

Has $100/barrel oil made us all hungry for oil-based docu-dramas?

Will there be an incessant parade of 1970s remakes, like Hawai Five-O, which is currently getting good reviews for its new version?

(photo Larry Hagman: Rex)

I like this clever shot of the map of the world in a cup of coffee, advertising the Tea Lounge at the Taj Palace Hotel in Mumbai - where Neil and I went for a break from the incredible heat of the city the day before last year's APIC conference.

All the creative credits are on the AdsoftheWorld website, along with a lot of moaning complaints that this idea has already been done to death.

Well I've come to it late, via a retweet from Ashok, and I think it's neat - it subverts the idea of reading the tealeaves or seeing a face-in-a-shroud - and it's certainly not worth posting a complaint about.

Milk could soon be sold from supermarket dispensers instead of plastic bottles, according to refill technology manufacturer Eziserv quoted in this week's issue of The Grocer.

Eziserv, which supplied refill technology to UK supermarket chain Asda in a trial for dispensing detergents, has been in discussions about modifying the same system to dispense milk.

The idea is to cut down on packaging waste, by dispensing the milk into packaging pouches of varying sizes. It would typically take about four to five seconds to fill about a litre to a litre and a half of milk.

(photo: Rex)

The annual NPRA IPC conference in San Antonio this year has already signed up over 2,460 delegates, according to a delegate list seen this week.

The International Petrochemical Conference (IPC) will take place at the Grand Hyatt San Antonio on 27-29 March 2011.

Last year's conference had between 2,400 and 2,500 delegates.

Delegates registered by today, Friday, 11 February 2011 are assured of publication of their names in the official program book, according to an email from the organisers this week.

The hotel reservation deadline is in two weeks, on 25 February, when the discounted early registration period ends. Registration will be $100 higher after this date.

A blue plaque celebrating the life and work of the Nobel prize-winning chemist Sir William Ramsay was unveiled in London's Notting Hill on Wednesday, as part of a series of events marking the International Year of Chemistry, I heard on Radio 4's Today programme as I drove to work in the morning.

Hugh Aldersey-Williams, writer of "Periodic Tales - The Curious Lives of the Elements," said:

"Chemistry has a brand problem. It's sort of trapped between physics, that's glamorous and, you know, cosmology and subatomic particles and mystery, and biology which is us and our bodies. And both of these things either fascinate us or matter. And chemistry's sort of the stuff under the kitchen sink. But the elements are all around us, and they produce all the beauty in the world, as well as all the nasty smells."

Click here to hear the radio article

The 84 year-old former science writer of the Daily Telegraph is crossing the Atlantic with a bunch of chums on a raft made of plastic pipes, and coming in for some serious abuse from the columns of Lloyds List.

Anthony Smith shows a reckless cheerfulness at the prospect of hurricanes and freak waves over 90 feet, and is undeterred by warnings of "the disappearance of substantial merchant vessels without trace. Oh, and with the loss of all hands," according to this posting in the venerable shipping journal's Maritime Blogspot.

PET bottles are banned from sale on the campus of Australia's University of Canberra (UC), according to this article spotted by Nigel in today's Plastics News.

He was rather taken by the striking headline: "Strewth Bruce! Aussie university bans PET bottles," which was a cunning pun on the fact that the UC is in Bruce, a suburb of Canberra.

Instead of buying their water in shiny plastic bottles, the 13,000 students and staff will be able to refill their own bottles from drinking fountains and bottle refill stations dispensing filtered water.

Devouring ten dishes including lobster, crispy seaweed and seabass, the Blog welcomed in the Year of the Rabbit with 50 other friends of China at a business dinner in Baker Street on Monday night. Everyone was supposed to have some connection with China, or at least a liking for big Chinese banquets, and the dress was "Business or Chinese."

The Blog expressed the spirit of friendship by eating everything that was put in front of me, even though my Asian colleagues have repeatedly told me that this is not good manners. It was a good opportunity to try out my beginner's Mandarin, at the top of my voice in a noisy restaurant.

I am now the proud owner of a Chinese calendar (the numbers will help me practise counting), a guide to lunar years of birth, and the business cards of people who'd like to advise me on mergers and acquisitions in China, even though I told them it's a bit late for that.

(photo: Phoenix Palace)

Artenius Sines has become Artlant PTA, the company announced on 8 February in a letter to all its business partners including the Blog.

The change in name takes immediate effect, and the new website will soon be up and running, according to a nice note "com os melhores cumprimentos" from Nadja W.

"Artlant PTA becomes the new Corporate Identity of Artenius Sines, the industrial unit in its final stage of construction at ZILS - Industrial and Logistics Area of Sines ... to be inaugurated in the last quarter of 2011," the statement adds.

Folkert Bloembergen has joined Summit Petrochemical Trading Inc as VP Olefins Europe, trading ethylene propylene and C4s, he told Nel today.

Folkert, who was involved in propylene for LyondellBasell, prior to his latest position of Customer Fulfilment Manager for LBI in Houston, joined 1 February 2011 and will be based in Den Haag (the Hague), Netherlands.

The capsized barge on the Rhine at St Goarshausen, which has featured in many petchem conversations in the last two weeks, is now shown on live webcam.

The Blog's first school trip to Germany was to St Goar at just this point on the Rhine, by the famous Lorelei rock where the Lorelei mermaid was said to lure sailors and fishermen onto the rocks.

(photo: SWR Fernsehen)

"Snowglobes are not allowed on any flights," according to a sign at security at departures in Houston IAH airport.

That's all. Nothing about liquids, guns or explosives - just snowglobes.

It suggests that snowglobe incidents have been giving airline officials some trouble recently.

The Blog resisted taking a photo of the sign, not wishing to be detained in a small room like fellow traveller Dan B, who was once kept in a room at IAH for four hours because he had failed to record the street number of his hotel on his immigration form.

Houston's Transportation Security Administration (TSA) website is clear on the subject:

Snow Globes: We are not in cahoots with the Heat Miser, but snow globes are not permitted in your carry-on luggage. They are sealed containers full of liquid that would have to be opened and destroyed to test. We're not in the business of busting snow globes, so we suggest you place them in your checked baggage or mail them ahead of time.

All this must come as a disappointment to anyone buying a Houston snowglobe at the airport souvenir shop.

John Baker and Nigel Davis of ICIS London were invited to the House of Commons yesterday evening for the UK industry launch of the UNESCO/IUPAC sponsored International Year of Chemistry (IYC).

John tells the Blog:

"We heard a sparky address on the importance of women in science and technology from Esther McVey, MP for Wirral West, who was recently appointed chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for the Chemical Industry.

The need to encourage children into the sciences and STEM subjects as well was addressed by Joydip Sanyal, the CIA's young ambassador of the year, introduced a schools competition as part of IYC and sponsored by INEOS, which aims to make pupils think about why science is important to their lives.

The event was sponsored by Johnson Matthey and hosted by the UK's CIA chemical trade body. A shame that the proceedings were somewhat overshadowed by the fact that Pfizer announced on the same day it is closing its UK R&D facilities in Sandwich, Kent with the loss of 2,400 jobs." 

Dirk van der Burg has left traders Intermarc, he told Nel on Tuesday.

He could not reveal where he was going but it would be announced soon, he added.

Prior to aromatics trading at Rotterdam-based Intermarc, he had been with traders Chemium. 

Here's another well-made video about chemicals in everyday life. This one from EPCA is slightly more ambitious in its scope than previous educational videos we have seen, with some attractive international scenes, some unexpectedly hi-tech examples and a nice tinkling soundtrack.

See other videos on the same subject:

More Top Chemical Adverts 

What a dreary film and what a disappointment. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps has no plot, weak characters, and it takes forever for the storyline to start. Michael Douglas has a completely unconvincing role which is not worthy of him at all.

It is so disappointing after the original Wall Street, which had a fast-paced plot, a great villain in Gordon Gekko, and some deeply memorable lines. It was also a big mistake to watch it with Blog daughter who has no interest in business or money, and was yawning within the first twenty minutes.

You know immediately who the bad guys are - they are the ones with investments in "old energy," oil and coal - as distinct from the angelic guys pushing "fusion." It was one cliché after the other, with the plot hinging on convincing the important investors who were of course Chinese. Give this one a miss.

Price assessments being at the heart of our business at ICIS, I've been involved with some methodology workshops in Houston and London over the last couple of weeks. In my role as head of market reporting, it's been interesting to hear from our pricing editors about the varying discount structures and contract settlement processes across different chemical markets.

We've been looking at markets with numerous players and ones with a shrinking number of participants, and discussing the individual methodology approaches which are appropriate. We have to keep moving to keep up with perpetually evolving markets.

Each week I sign off on structural changes to the market reports. In recent weeks we've had plenty of report changes, including:

• Adding quotes in eight local currencies to the Latin American polymers reports;
• Adding rupee quotes to various polymer and solvent reports which include India;
• Changing the US fatty acids spot assessments to monthly contracts.

We've also been redefining delivery terms and filling in gaps where we haven't previously had coverage. Asia is undoubtedly the region which is evolving the fastest, and developments on the ICIS Asia and Middle East reports come across my desk (or screen) in a constant stream. The end-result is always good, but sometimes the journey there can be a bit tortuous.