March 2012 Archives

On my way back from registration for AFPM in the Grand Hyatt on Saturday afternoon, I run into Bernard who tells me that he is just back from the tropical paradise of Praia do Forte in Brazil, where he was attending the 6^th EBDQUIM conference hosted by the Brazilian association of chemical and petrochemical distributors Associquim.

It was great, he says, only while he was there he was bitten by wild dog and ended up having to have five rabies shots. He indicates the parts of his body where the five needles were plunged. I can tell he is still feeling this was a bit of an over-reaction to what he describes as a slight scratch. He also wasn't too impressed with his colleague Joe, who made a quick departure from the scene crying "I'll get a doctor."

A thick pea-souper fog shrouds San Antonio as the jet-lagged early risers wake to the Saturday morning of AFPM (the conference formerly known as NPRA). A few suits are already in a meeting in the breakfast room of the Marriott Riverwalk Hotel, but most delegates arriving a day early are focussing on going for a run on the Riverwalk, checking out the hotel gym or setting off shopping.

The remaining stragglers from San Antonio's previous conference are still wandering around town with their badges on. By mid-morning the sky is blue and the temperature is set to reach 32 deg C (91 deg F). I read an article on ICIS news that AFPM attendance is expected to be well over 2,900 and possibly more than 3,000 for the first time in a few years. 

It is boom time for sales of plastic petrol cans in the UK, after a government minister mistakenly advised people to stockpile petrol at home. The UK press is full of articles about panic buying of fuel, dry petrol stations and domestic accidents caused by petrol storage in homes.

One article in Friday's FT reported "a 225% jump in sales of fuel cans at Halfords, including a 500% rise in 20 litre jerry cans, which are too large to store domestic petrol legally."

(photo: Rex)

I feel sorry for the guy sitting next to me on the plane to Houston, with me blowing my nose every five minutes. Still, right after take-off he falls asleep, and stays sound asleep for five hours. How does he do that?

I've read the paper, done some Chinese homework and then watched a couple of films. The second one is Contagion. It is about people like us who move around from place to place, spreading their contagion. Gwyneth Paltrow has a leading but very short-lived role. I don't want to spoil the film for anyone, but she's dead within the first ten minutes. After that, the characters are dropping like flies.

The disease spreads through people on buses, in schools, in casinos, on planes, through touching surfaces, coughing and sneezing. They don't even have to get on to people gathering at conferences, shaking hands or air-kissing. After watching the film I resolve to keep a clear metre away from everyone in meetings this weekend. And to be prepared for the next mass outbreak of a deadly virus, as soon as I get home, I'm going to fill up the freezer and put a few multi-packs of bottled water in the shed.

The good thing about a business day trip from London to mainland Europe is that you can travel ultra-light. Just a presentation on a memory stick and some business cards and you are done.

It is an early start, but the backroads to Heathrow are bright with cherry blossom, forsythia and magnolia. Mist is coming off the agricultural fields around Sunbury. Closer to the airport it must be colder - the trees are still bare. Daffodils are out in force outside the Cathay Pacific Cargo hangar. At this time in the morning, the journey is just 25 minutes door to door, perfect. I stride unencumbered through airport security.

At the airport, the first signs of disruption. The flight is delayed by 35 minutes. Most flights on the board are showing delays.

I ask the BA attendant in the lounge why. "It's the fog," she tells me, indicating the glorious sunny morning outside. "It's delayed a lot of the incoming flights."

I'm now wishing I'd taken the Eurostar train, but that would have meant leaving the house 75 minutes earlier. That is a big time difference at this hour in the morning: the difference between getting up before 5.00 or at 6.00.

There are no pesky emails on my blackberry this early on a Monday morning, only a text from Linda to say that she too is on her way from Paris.

I am fascinated watching what other people are eating for breakfast. Some of these bodies must be on very different time zones. Most of us are on breakfast foods, but one young man is shovelling down two huge bowls of salad. Another large man is working his way through the wine selection: first a glass of white, then a very careful appraisal of all the bottles open in the silver ice buckets before choosing a red from the cabinet.

I see with sinking heart that my BA flight is a code-share with a QF and an IT flight, so it will be rammed full. Linda texts back that she will start the meeting without me.

The smell of my neighbour's coleslaw on an empty stomach is quite revolting, although on reflection nowhere near as bad as the worst morning smell of all, a freshly opened tin of cat food.

Linda sends a follow-up text to remind me to stay off the pastry counter as we are likely to be treated to a very good lunch. Then suddenly the flight is showing as Board Now, and we all head for the doors.

Polimeri Europa has changed its name to Eni Versalis, the Blog heard on a company visit today.

The new name was made public by Eni's chief executive officer Paolo Scaroni on 15 March 2012 in a speech outlining the company's strategy for 2012-2015.

"To reflect the new strategy we have renamed the business Eni Versalis. It will be

expertly led by Daniele Ferrari, who joins us with 25 years of experience at ICI and

Huntsman," Scaroni said.

Ferrari had originally announced the planned name change in a speech to GPCA in December, but had not revealed the names under consideration, according to an article in ICIS Chemical Business (ICB).

(photo: Houston Chronicle)

For a close-up photo of a grackle, see the Houston Chronicle.

An art exhibition exploring nature and petrochemical production is taking place in Houston at the DiverseWorks Art Space in March as part of Fotofest 2012, spotted by Ken F at the photography festival opening.

"Necrocracy" by Brooklyn-based artist Marina Zurkow explores the world of hydrocarbons in video animation, drawings and sculpture. Three new video works including "Hydrocarbons" feature interaction between humans and nature that arise out of oil driling in West Texas.

Todd Rogers, currently with Shell Chemicals aromatics team in Houston, will be joining Integra in Houston on 1 April 2012, the company announced today.

Rogers will be heading up Integra's aromatics business in the USA.

"The Integra Group's aromatics team is comprised of Peter Johansen in Brussels, Jereme Aziz, and  Waraporn Pumpaisanchai in Singapore, BW Namgung in Seoul, Lucy Lin Beijing, Edson Salvadoretti in Porto Alegre and Abdulrahman al Seriea in Riyadh," the company said.

Guy Keymolen of Vopak Belgium is moving to the company's Houston office, he informed business partners by email yesterday.

Keymolen, who was at Vopak Belgium for six years, will become Vopak Global Account Director based in Houston, Texas.

His role as commercial manager will be filled by Birgit Henderickx, formerly sales manager at Vopak Belgium.

ICIS held its biggest-ever World Base Oils & Lubricants event in London recently and ICIS editor John Baker was on the spot to record interviews with keynote speakers.

The result can be found in the latest ICIS interactive online publication.

"Preparation, preparation, preparation" - are the three most important points in giving a successful presentation. It is the equivalent of the property world's "location, location, location." But where to do that preparation? That is the question.

In the office with your peers? In the AV theatre? At home to your unimpressed family? How about on a plane, where you shouldn't even be reading sensitive material (Code of Conduct, section 4) in full view of adjacent strangers?

Even the most experienced presenter needs a few runs through to make sure there are no obvious mistakes and that the slides segue smoothly from one thought to the next.

One speaker at a past Aromatics Conference told me that he had gathered together all the staff in his Rotterdam building, not just once but twice, to practise his paper before the big event.

Another aromatics speaker told the audience that he had just thrown the paper together that morning, and I could believe it as he shambled through it.

Once the presentation has been submitted, that is the time to rehearse, but deep in every presenter's heart is the desire to put it off. It is like exam revision. One colleague told me that she had had her speech sitting on her desk for a week, taken it home for the weekend, brought it back to the office, taken it home again, and still hadn't been able to force herself to look at it until a couple of days before the event.

So here I am, sitting on the plane, with a print-out of my slides held together with a bulldog clip sitting on my lap. I would rather be reading "Heidi," which I downloaded (free) onto my Kindle this morning to imbibe a bit of Swiss culture. Unfortunately, every reading of the presentation reveals questions which will need further online research. Luckily, there are three days to go, so there is still plenty of time to knock it into shape.

(photo: Rex)

In Zurich airport I bumped in to my friend Philip L who was coincidentally there for a Euromap meeting. We were both rather taken with the unintentional silliness of this sign.

Click here for more debate on the Camel Smoking Lounge.

The US Customs and Border Protection declaration form asks the question: "The primary purpose of this trip is business: YES/NO."

Most business travellers find that it is only once in a while that they are able to combine the two. Usually school holidays are the limiting factor, and trips to desirable places rarely coincide with summer breaks.

The chemical conferences in the best holiday locations are always Methanol and Fertilizers. They don't shrink away from tropical beach resorts in the way that mainstream petrochemical conferences do. But even methanol and fertilizer conference-goers aren't always able to have their families join them after the event, even if they wanted to.

If the purpose of a business trip is at all stressful, then there is really no point in trying to tack a weekend mini-break on in the days beforehand. The anxiety of the impending meeting or presentation casts a cloud over the whole weekend. Much better is to have the R&R after the event, especially if it has gone well and there is some well-earned elation that it is all over.

(photo: Rex)

Most people are scared of public speaking, rating it up there with divorce, bereavement and moving house as one of life's most stressful events. Really it is not that bad after the first few.

The best kind of presentation is one you have done before, or at least one that is not very different to previous ones. The familiarity and the memory of previous good deliveries, turn the ordeal into an almost pleasant experience.

By contrast, the worst kind of presentation is delivering someone else's material. From friends' horror tales, it is clear that this scenario has a high potential for disaster. "I looked at your slide and my mind went completely blank," one told me.

One thing the Blog has learnt in recent weeks is that the worst kind of slides to borrow are ones involving Chinese petchem plant capacities. Never, never borrow slides showing figures or graphs for Chinese production, because they will keep you up late into the night trying to work out whether these are in thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions.  

In China it is commonplace to talk in tens of thousands (wan), so a 5 on a graph with no explanation is most likely to mean 50,000 tonnes. But a slide borrowed from an English-speaking colleague may or may not already be converted into thousands (ie 5 = 5,000).  It is the road to ruin, and the only solution is to take the slides out before anyone notices.

(photo: Rex)

Stylish polymer Corian is the latest thing for trendy kitchens, the Blog reads in an article "Corian seduces with its curves" in the Times property supplement, Bricks & Mortar.

Increasingly popular in bespoke kitchens, particularly in glacier white, it allows for worktops and sinks to flow in one continuous unit. The non-porous Du Pont material, made of acrylic polymer and alumina trihydrate, is seen as more hygienic than wood in the kitchen, and with near-invisible joints can be made to look seamless.

(photo: Solidity)

Mined minerals used in cosmetics are vastly superior to liquid formulations - more healthy, more natural and recommended by dermatologists - according to a puff piece for bareMinerals in the February issue of British Airways' "Shop" magazine.

In a risibly pseudo scientific piece which should be used in journalism school for critique purposes, the beauty reviewer writes of the "100% natural formulation":

"The secret lies in a blend of titanium dioxide and zinc oxide ..., mica (light reflective, conceals imperfections), iron oxide (adds pigment) and bismuth oxychloride ... that result in a hydrating protective and perfecting hybrid of skin care and make-up ..."  

Gymnast and World Championship gold medal winner, Beth Tweddle, known to Blog readers for her petrochemical connections, is seeking her first Olympic medal at this summer's games, according to an article about how much she owes to her coach in the February issue of the British Airways in-flight magazine.

"It was my dad's idea to send me to gym classes. It suited me because I'm not scared of anything. I'm very stubborn - I get that from my dad," she says, referencing the father who worked at ICI on Teesside, UK, along with our own Paul Hodges, and now works for INEOS Chlor Vinyls.

Other Blog readers who are proud to claim connections with Beth Tweddle and her father Jerry Tweddle include Judith, who lives in the same village as Beth, and Hugh, who used to work for Jerry and whose daughters now train at the same gym where she started.

(photo: FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships, Tokyo, Japan - 8 Oct 2011: Rex)

• Nel Weddle via Twitter

  nelweddle Awaiting news of new C4 storage in USG timing 1H 2013 #icis #epca

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  3 hours ago
• Nel Weddle via Twitter

  nelweddle #olefins producer indicates his digit increase for next months CP #Icis #olefins conference #yamhttp://t.co/12VjEuoc

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  14 hours ago
• Nel Weddle via Twitter

  nelweddle Do not have space to rpt all the compliments given to #icis #olefins conference - impressive best yet and so on

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  21 hours ago
• Nel Weddle via Twitter

  nelweddle "What drives BD demand? Cars" 60% BD goes to auto sector #icis #olefins conference

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  23 hours ago
• Nel Weddle via Twitter

  nelweddle RT @MauriceKramer : Luckily we have now a CP for March! Next step for all participants.......stick to a proper process.

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  23 hours ago
• Nel Weddle via Twitter

  nelweddle "where does the big gorilla sit in the bar? anywhere he wants" #icis #olefins conference speaker referring to ME capacities #yam

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  1 day ago
• Nel Weddle likes this update:

  William Beacham via Twitter

  BillBeacham Notice how the European Chemicals Agency is disguising the obvious acronym for its latest initiative:"Community rolling action plan (CoRAP)"

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  1 day ago
• Nel Weddle via Twitter

  nelweddle lack of clarity relating to March #butadiene CP appears to be over news shortly on #icis

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  1 day ago
• Nel Weddle via Twitter

  nelweddle Europe #petchem ind best summed up by Mark Twain "rpts of my demise greatly exaggerated" #icis#olefins #yam

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  1 day ago
• Nel Weddle via Twitter

  nelweddle There is enough # BD to match demand it just needs to be extracted still too much CC4 being recycled#icis #olefins conference