Tel Aviv will be the summer 2013 venue for EPL (European Petrochemical Luncheon), as reported in Sofia. Delegates received an email today from the EPL organisers, giving ample notice of the date as 20 June 2013, and soliciting responses by 1 July 2012.
Some bonus elements are offered. An organised tour to Jerusalem will be organised for the weekend after the EPL, and Gadiv will be sponsoring the EPL dinner on the Thursday evening.
Thanks to everyone at EPL in Sofia who asked why I
wasn't writing the Blog any more, and expressed regret when I explained that:
1) I have given it up and 2) I don't have the time and 3) I have a proper job
which takes up quite a lot of my time ...So here we are again, and the Sofia EPL on 13-15 June was really pretty good, with lots of sunshine after the dismal summer in northwest Europe, and everything was nice and cheap. From the hotel to the restaurants, coffees and taxis, everything was laughably inexpensive. I kept trying to pay for taxi fares with my 20 Lev note (10 GB pounds), but with typical fares of 3 Lev, taxi drivers kept refusing to take it. The service level everywhere was very high, with everyone charming and helpful, with good English and lots of smiles.
The flights were cheap but, unfortunately, some of those who came through Paris lost their luggage, and still had not had it back by the end of the EPL. The market mood was pretty bad too, and a number of aromatics traders were planning to join this week's ICIS Phenol Conference to look for ways into pastures new.
Most of our meetings were outside on the terrace, and there was time for a walk around the cobbled streets of the old city while most delegates were watching the Germany vs Netherlands match in the Euros on Wednesday evening.
The EPL dinner had a good turnout with 152 delegates, as you'd expect at a bargain €39 a head, and a perfectly short ten-minute speech about business in Bulgaria followed by some wild folk dancing featuring flags, flower garlands and some fetching pointy hats.
I spent my remaining lev (and stotinki) on some Bulgarian Delight (aka Turkish Delight) at the airport, which tastes like sweet rubber but seems pretty popular in the ICIS office.
Photos (the good ones are from Nel):
1 View of Sofia and mountains from hotel
2 EPL at the Hilton Hotel, Sofia
3 Meeting area on the hotel terrace
4 Sofia cathedral, Wednesday evening
5 EPL dinner entertainment, Thursday
The 7th
ICIS Olefins Conference, set for 29 February 2012, has announced some speaker
additions to the programme:
The conference will take place at the Radisson Royal Blu hotel, Brussels - near to the Grand Place - the day before the EPL in Brussels on 1 March.
What was the news from EPL in
The Blog was keen to hear how broker David P's two-minute review of the year at the EPL dinner went, and various diners reported back that it was entertaining. How much the non-native English speakers understood of his references to quantitative easing creams and surfing analogies wasn't clear. One diner reported back that a joke about Jossi seemed to go on for an hour.
Another shipbroker speaker had a more downbeat message for the evening, and the dinner was rounded off with a magician who called unsuspecting but sporting people up from the audience to join in his tricks. The photo shows "Toby W being zapped at the EPL," c/o Nel.
The summer EPL will take place in Sofia, Bulgaria in June 2012, we hear from Nel on Sunday night at EPCA in Berlin.
She has heard it from two members of the European Petrochemical Luncheon (EPL) committee. The summer event had been expected to take place in Istanbul, but news of the move to Sofia was greeted with enthusiasm.
The next European Petrochemical Luncheon (EPL) will take place at The Hotel, formerly the Hilton, in
The popular Christmas dinner will not be at the Conrad as the organisers had previously announced, the Blog notes with some disappointment.
Browsing through some rather mixed reviews of the rebranded The Hotel, the eye is drawn to one review entitled "Not a patch on the old Hilton," which is clearly bonkers since it couldn't possibly be any worse.
The EPL's guest after-dinner speaker will be a Mr Lior Suchard: "Supernatural entertainer and mentalist with extraordinary talent for mind reading, thought influencing and telekinesis."
Delegates with guilty consciences, or trading plans they wish to keep secret, are advised to go for the tables at the back. As the mentalist says on his website: "Always think positive thoughts ... You never know who can read them."
EPL has confirmed the dates for its 2012 meetings in Brussels.
The March European Petrochemical Luncheon will take place at the Conrad Hotel on Thursday 1 March 2012.
The December 2012 EPL will be on Thursday 13 December, also at the Conrad, our friends at the EPL confirmed by email while I was on holiday last week.
Reclining in the waters of
It is a giant sculpture by artist Oliver Voss showing a woman's head and knees, as if she was lying down in the water, and will be on display for the first half of August.
In the background can be seen
photo: Getty/Yahoo
A man in a bubble briefly drew the attention of EPL delegates holding their meetings on the terrace of the Copenhagen Marriott on Thursday afternoon.
"Are we living in a bubble?" "The bubble bursts," and various other bubble-related clichés were suggested by one passing
Aside from business, hot topics at the industry gathering were:
"The Arab Spring" must have seemed like a timely and educational topic for the EPL after-dinner speech, but as the elderly speaker read his way though a list of 12 illustrative points, the rumblings of discontent grew louder from the tables at the back.
Relief mixed with hilarity after the dinner ended on a chocolate high.
"When you've done 15 meetings in a day, you just can't sit through 40 points," said one trader, exaggerating slightly.
From the Blog's vantage point of the second table, some diners at the front could be seen listening attentively with their eyes shut tight.
The dinner had a strong attendance of 170, but there were words of admonishment for those who were there for the event but had gone elsewhere to sample Danish cuisine in the evening, from the EPL chairman in his welcoming speech.
The dinner with its customary informative speech was the raison d'être of the EPL, and by not attending, those delegates were undermining its very existence, he warned.
The Copenhagen EPL meeting set for June at the Marriott Hotel on the Kalvebod Brygge waterfront has run into problems with hotel bookings, according to an email warning from EPL to members today.
Delegates are already grumbling that they have been unable to get bookings for the night of 15 June 2011, ahead of the EPL dinner on 16 June.
It is not that the hotel is sold out, the Copenhagen Marriott reservations office told the Blog, but that they only have rooms at 3,799.00 Danish Krone (DKK) per night (€510, $726, £447.)
The EPL is recommending that delegates try some neighbouring four star hotels, where the rates are a third of the price and more like 1,315 DKK per night.
What a pleasant surprise to see the response from the manager of The Hotel (formerly the Brussels Hilton) to the posting "March EPL Brussels: new Hilton same as old Hilton."
"Important decisions are being made every day and we are doing our utmost to guarantee a high level of service and standards .... I can assure you that the renovations and refurbishments of the other areas of the hotel (restaurants, banquet rooms, guest rooms) will follow in the very near future ....We aim to provide a secure environment and are therefore not allowed to store any items from non-residents. We apologise if this has caused any inconvenience for you."
See Mr Verbrugghe's full response under Comments.
The Belgian 24-hour general strike on Friday 4 March caused havoc to chemical folk returning from Brussels the morning after the EPL dinner.
Public transport was disrupted and the capital's roads were blocked so people had to find imaginative ways out. Our own intrepid reporters had to walk to the Eurostar train terminal at Gare du Midi.
The EPL dinner on Thursday evening, with its guest speaker, the US ambassador to Belgium was judged a success, despite the same-old same-old hotel and its surly staff.
The ambassador's topic, "If Obama were a country, he'd be Belgium," revealed him to be the President's number one fan, Truong relays back to the Blog.
The European Petrochemical Luncheon (EPL) committee has elected Ruth Sandelowsky of Kolmar to join the committee as of 3 March 2011, replacing Peter Demetriadi who has completed his three years today.
She takes over the position as the trader member of the committee, and will be in charge of inviting speakers for the EPL dinner.
Michiel Brons, formerly of SABIC in the Netherlands and then Riyadh, joined Petrochemical Brokerage (PCB) on 1 March 2011, he told the Blog today at EPL in Brussels.
He will be broking benzene and styrene for the Rotterdam-based brokerage. On a personal note, he said, he has just become the father of a baby daughter.
The Blog spent a few hours at the March EPL in Brussels on Thursday morning, after the ICIS 6th World Olefins Conference on Wednesday.
At breakfast in the Sofitel, across Boulevard de Waterloo from the EPL hotel, it was obvious that a lot of EPL-goers had chosen to stay at the Sofitel and have their morning meetings there.
The renamed Hilton - "The Hotel" - has had its lobby renovated, but that is the only change that could be detected under its new ownership. Truong informed me that the rooms are unchanged and poorly lit. The famously poky and smoky bar is now a non-smoking area, but the Blog hears that the decades of smoke are so deeply ingrained in the carpets that the smell is pretty much unchanged.
The staff on the concierge desk are still as unhelpful as ever, refusing to accept non-residents' suitcases into the left luggage.
EPL members are keen to move to another Brussels hotel, and the summer meeting will be at a Marriott in Copenhagen, on the waterfront and close to the Tivoli Gardens, a committee member tells me. But then it's back to Brussels for the December meeting, then Amsterdam for March 2012.
So far, the EPL committee is holding three options for the June 2012 summer meeting: Istanbul, Nice or Barcelona, in that order, he adds.
(photo: The Hotel, Brussels)
Ahead of the summer EPL in Copenhagen, some canny travellers have been taking advice from local friends.
It seems that the Danish capital has some fantastic food. I've just read through this review which Truong has kindly forwarded to me, and was struck by words like "incredible", "wonderments", "life-changing", "absurdly delicious" and my favourite, "the best onion of my life."
The turnout of EPL delegates at the official dinner is generally strong at the summer EPL, but there is always the risk that the turnout is inversely proportional to the quality of the local cuisine.
The Blog has a feeling that a few delegates will be picking up the phone to make their restaurant reservations for 14-16 June today.
(photo: Rex)
The US Ambassador to Belgium, His Excellency Howard Gutman, will be the guest after-dinner speaker at the EPL dinner in March.
The event will take place at the Hilton Hotel (now The Hotel) in Brussels, on Thursday, 3 March 2011.
The theme of his speech will be: "If Barack Obama Were a Country, He Would Be Belgium."
The price of the dinner will be € 88.00. Book via the EPL website:
The days of the spouses' programme at conferences may be over, but chemical folk are not averse to taking a partner along on the occasional trip. Especially those whose children are past school-age.
The summer EPL meeting, usually in a warm location, is often the time to catch sight of these rare birds.
EPCA in Budapest saw a strong turnout of partners at the Official Opening Reception at the Hungarian National Gallery.
On considering this important business issue of our time, the Blog has established:
The Key Benefits Of Taking Your Partner With You On A Business Trip:
1 He can carry everything.
2 You avoid having to work out the time difference for calling home.
3 You avoid the awkwardness of one of you having seen all the newly released films.
4 You can feature in some of your own photos: so here I am, standing in front of the magnetic levitating Maglev train into Shanghai from Pudong airport, after the 11 hour 10 minute flight from London.
The Hilton Brussels, long-time home of the European Petrochemical Luncheon (EPL), has been sold to the Swedish hotel group Pandox, and is now "The Hotel," according to an article in the Dutch press spotted by Blog reader Lode.
EPL-goers, who have been complaining about the Hilton Brussels for many years, will be relieved to read that the building will be undergoing a two-year refurbishment as of February, but this will take place while the hotel remains open.
The Blog is glad to have booked at the Sofitel across the road from the Hilton for the key dates of 1-3 March 2011, when the ICIS Olefins Conference and EPL are taking place in Brussels. Blog readers are recommended to do the same. The ICIS rate at the Sofitel is just €195/night INCLUDING breakfast, so it's a no-brainer.
