Recently in corporate life Category

The whole EPCA Berlin experience is captured for posterity in this video clip, shot in the lobby of the Berlin Intercontinental and the ICIS suite, and starring familiar faces from the world of petrochemicals as they rush about their business over three days in October 2009. Thanks to Stephen Burns of ICIS Houston for encapsulating the drama and passion of the event in this 2.19 minute video, with a jolly German oompah band backing track.

The Blog has often mused on why golf is the sport du moment of the petrochemical industry. Why not football? Why not tennis? Why not flower-arranging?

Football had its brief moment in the spotlight after some eager 5-a-side games at EPL and the infamous annual APLA national team championship where players' nationalities can be pretty fluid and injuries are always multiple.

After this brief flowering, golf has reasserted its stranglehold on the industry. As a non-golfer, I've enjoyed the alternative trips round stately homes, spa outings, the funny speeches and especially the takeaway golfshirts with company logos which stay untouched, some still in their plastic wrappers, on a high shelf in the wardrobe.

Now a friend has emailed the Blog a promo video for Calloway's "Big Bertha" golf club which is unsuitable not only for a corporate blog but also so unsuitable that it was quarantined by the ICIS anti-virus filter. At first I thought it must be a spoof, but have subsequently found it on YouTube. While browsing through Calloway's range of amusing golfing ads, I came across this one on "hitting a 3-metal from salad" ...

Michael Vassiliadis, the newly elected chairman of Germany's 7,000-strong chemicals and energy union IG BCE, is shown on Deutsche Welle playing "Stairway to Heaven."

While researching an ICIS news article on the union boss's call for reliable energy policies, news reporter Franco Capaldo came across this video on YouTube.

While we are still recovering from EPCA Berlin, Ed Cox and the ICIS Heren team are in sunny Buenos Aires to cover the World Gas Conference. A starry-eyed Ed puts down his glass of Malbec to spill the beans on the latest Gazprom extravaganza ... 

Here I am at the World Gas Conference in sunny Buenos Aires. I have seen a million sights - I could write about any of these - or the amazing stalls at the conference itself. But no. Keen readers may remember my brush with Russian giant Gazprom earlier in the year, during the spat with Ukraine, which left a certain mark on me. Amid all the tango dancing, steak and fine wine, once again it's the smell of vodka and Russian gas that will linger longest in my mind.

You see, each company has a 'stall' at the conference. It's the biggest exhibition I've ever seen. There must be 1,000 stalls. Some of them are bigger than a house. Some have women dancing outside them, Formula One cars, free booze. And then there's the Gazprom 'stall'. It's the size of a temple with an ice skating rink in front of it. Word is that the Russian girls who skate on it are some of the best in the world. It's the biggest stand in the most prominent position, it really is quite amazing.

I picked up a few new business cards at EPCA from old friends moving jobs.

Barry Hurley, formerly of BP and INEOS, has now set up a consultancy Barry Hurley Associates.

Joe Duffy, previously with Huntsman and SABIC, has joined DeWitt as Vice President, Ethylene, Propylene and Derivatives, EAME, based in the UK, but I see no sign of him on the company website.

Nick King, most recently ex-Artenius, was giving out cards with the company name Cloonacool Consultancy, which he said he had not yet registered, hence no website as yet.

It's good to see that Lanxess is so delighted at winning the ICIS Company of the Year Award. Most of the Lanxess home page is set aside to celebrate the award, and the press release was translated into several languages. Apparently the employees are thrilled and their customers are impressed too.

"So much effort goes into the Top 100 - which has been a roaring success this year - and the Company of the Year Award and it's hugely encouraging to see the winning company taking the award so seriously. Great brand building for both of us. Lanxess is a worthy winner," says Nigel Davis, editor of Chemical Insight in his praise of Lara Mcnamee and the ICB team who put the list together.

Executives from chemical and fertilizer company Potash Corporation have been profiled in the New York Times in an article (with helpful video footage) which describes the way they multitask behind the wheel. Shocking though it seems to Europeans, using your cellphone and laptop, often both together, while driving is entirely legal in the US.

One Potash Corp regional salesman, gives this stomach-churning quote: "I'd be on my cellphone, writing notes in my planner, driving with my knee, and with a sandwich in my lap."

"He felt he could not ignore his phone, he said, because he never knew which call or e-mail message would be one he could not miss ... Tens of thousands of Americans have turned their cars, vans and trucks into mobile offices, wired with phones and computers to stay in close touch with bosses and customers."

"On Wednesday, the Transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, called the broader phenomenon of distracted driving a "deadly epidemic" at a meeting on the issue in Washington."

It's definitely something to bear in mind next time you pick up the hire car from Houston airport and launch onto the freeway into the city.

Chemical folk are keen on tall buildings, so my eye was drawn to this artist's impression of Gazprom's proposed Okhta Centre on the Neva River in St Petersburg, soon to be Europe's tallest skyscraper after it yesterday received approval from the city's Governor.

At 403 metres it will dwarf Europe's current tallest building, the 300-metre Commerzbank HQ in Frankfurt, but will not even be in the same league as the Burj Dubai project, which is expected to be 818 metres when completed this year.

How soon will it before the world's petrochemical conferences move in to the hotel and business centre planned for the building already nicknamed the "Corn on the Cob" for its twisting design?

(photo: e-architect.co.uk)

The ICIS Chemicals Confidential blog is two years old today. Like many difficult toddlers hitting the Terrible Twos, it is now moving into the difficult phase for blogs, where many just give up.

So many links to postings on other sites lead to defunct blogs, where the blogger just ran out of enthusiasm after two years, but Chemicals Confidential is happily thriving on its diet of gossip and trivia from the petrochemical industry.

The second year saw more postings, more comments, and more readers than the first year. The Blog is now stuffed with 615 postings and 280 comments, and the Google Analytics map above shows that it is even more widely read than a year ago, reaching 188 countries and an unbelievable 8,980 cities (being least read in: Mnichovice, Chiclayo, Phrae and Portoviejo), although I suspect that a fair few of these hits were attracted more by pictures of cuddly animals than by a thirst for petchem background knowledge.

I wonder if a picture of Knut the Berlin polar bear cub slipped cunningly into next week's conference coverage will provide a similar boost to the Blog's unique user numbers for 2009-2010.

On the subject of gadgets, I like the look of the new Digital Video Memo. It's a small magnetised box with a video camera and microphone. You look into the camera, press record, and it captures a 30-second clip of your message, which can be played back to your colleagues in the office, or family members from the fridge door, to help them cope with the pain of your absence. At only £30, it's the ideal price for a purchase-on-a-whim.

(photo: iwantoneofthose.com)