January 2009 - ICIS Blogs

ICIS Blogs

Home

Syndication

Archives

Sort by: Most Recent | Most Viewed | Most Commented

Most economic forecasts are too optimistic

Prof David Blanchflower, of the Bank of England, is not optimistic that the current recession will end soon . He notes that "few macro-economists actually spotted the greatest financial crisis in a hundred years". And in the chart above, showing...

Published 31 Jan 2009 18:30 by Chemicals & The Economy

Filed under: Economic growth, Financial Events, Bank of England, M & A, Leverage, recession, OECD, Prof David Blanchflower
Cramer hits at Dow's Liveris

The credibility of some chemical industry CEO's seems to be under increasing attack, due to their apparent failure to develop proper contingency plans in advance of the current recession. One example this week comes from the USA, where Jim Cramer...

Published 31 Jan 2009 17:53 by Chemicals & The Economy

Filed under: Economic growth, Oil markets, Financial Events, M & A, Leverage, recession, Andrew Liveris, Dow Chemical, Jim Cramer
IMF says "demand has collapsed", sees "deflation risk"

A year ago , the International Monetary Fund rightly warned that the world was facing a "serious economic slowdown". This week , it has updated its forecasts, and now "expects the global economy to come to a virtual standstill in 2009"...

Published 31 Jan 2009 12:40 by Chemicals & The Economy

Filed under: China, Economic growth, Oil markets, Financial Events, credit crunch, M & A, Leverage, OPEC, Saudi Arabia, crude oil prices, IMF, financial stability
Virgin - the world's funniest passenger complaint

Thanks to my ICIS colleague Paul Ray for this classic passenger complaint letter which is circulating the world in email and now enshrined in an article in the UK's Daily Telegraph. Read More...

Published 30 Jan 2009 14:30 by ICIS Chemicals Confidential

Filed under: India, Virgin, trivia, business travel, Heathrow, jokes, airline food, complaints
NYC mayor plans to tax plastic bag

I just received a press release from the American Chemistry Council (ACC) berating Mayor Bloomberg's proposal to tax New York city residents on their use of grocery plastic bags. City Hall proposed that stores charge customers a 5 cent fee for each...

Published 30 Jan 2009 14:07 by Green Chemicals

Filed under: Regulation, NYC, Government, plastic bag, tax
Lobbying for protection

Protecting local companies during these difficult times is back on the Indian government's agenda. Antidumping investigations are on the rise with companies working hard to prove that low priced imports are hurting their businesses. The government...

Published 30 Jan 2009 7:34 by India Chemicals Blog

Filed under: China, Companies, Petrochemicals, Government Policy, economy, caustic soda, polyol, dumping, South Korea, melamine, nitrile rubber, synthetic rubber, ADD
Weight gain and business travel

It starts at the airport with the comforting cappuccino and the plateful of dinky little mini-croissants and pains au chocolat, because after all it was such an early start and there wasn't time for breakfast at home. Then there are the long hours...

Published 29 Jan 2009 19:13 by ICIS Chemicals Confidential

Filed under: Food, trivia, business travel, Singapore, hotels, New York, meetings, beer, breakfast, jogging
Pencil sized plastic bags of milk

A battle is raging in the august columns of the Times today about the benefits of those little pencil-sized plastic bags of milk which are served with coffee on trains, planes and in cafeterias, versus those of the tiny plastic pots of milk which were...

Published 29 Jan 2009 18:12 by ICIS Chemicals Confidential

Filed under: plastics, trivia, packaging, Times, milk, train, coffee
Two vehicles for the price of one

The designer of this new motorhome-citycar-combo hopes that "the sleek curves will appeal to women buyers." It's appealing to me already, but I'm not sure how good those swathes of shiny white glass-reinforced plastics (GRP) will look...

Published 29 Jan 2009 18:08 by ICIS Chemicals Confidential

Filed under: hi-tech, women, cars, reinforced plastics, Colim, motorhomes
Video of LNG worker setting fire to his helmet

A dubious video showing a worker at a liquid natural gas (LNG) terminal setting fire to the goggles on his head in a life-threatening prank was recorded and posted on YouTube, according to this article spotted by our friends at ICIS Heren. Investigations...

Published 29 Jan 2009 18:02 by ICIS Chemicals Confidential

Filed under: chemicals, LNG, Wales, media life, YouTube, ICIS Heren, Western Telegraph
Wal-Mart to reduce detergent phosphates

Phosphates doomed fate in detergent cleaners will probably be sealed this week as big box retailer Wal-Mart announced its plans to reduce phosphates in laundry and dish detergents sold in the Americas by 70% by 2011. Wal-Mart said phosphates from detergents...

Published 29 Jan 2009 13:13 by Green Chemicals

Filed under: Company initiatives, Government, phosphates, sustainability, packaging, detergent, Walmart
Chemicals: The backbone of green cleaning

As the blog mentioned in the past, there's no doubt that the green trend is very much prevalent within the cleaning chemicals market although they prefer to call it more as sustainability. Within my first day at the Soap and Detergent Association...

Published 29 Jan 2009 11:32 by Green Chemicals

Filed under: Company initiatives, Products, General, sustainability, detergent, green cleaning, soap
Dow Chemical moves to Plan B

A month ago, after the collapse of the K-Dow deal, the blog suggested that Dow would need to quickly move to a Plan B . It added that "nobody would be very surprised if it now sought to renegotiate the proposed Rohm & Haas acquisition"....

Published 28 Jan 2009 10:53 by Chemicals & The Economy

Filed under: Economic growth, Financial Events, M & A, Leverage, Andrew Liveris, Dow Chemical, global downturn, Rohm & Haas
Chem engineers back with avengeance

At the moment, a shell-shocked chemicals industry is still recovering from the impact of destocking following the huge inventory write downs in Q4. The next step will be to measure the state of genuine, end-user demand and how this compares with the fantastic...

Published 28 Jan 2009 8:17 by Asian Chemical Connections

Filed under: US, Economics, China, technology, Europe, aromatics, Olefins, Polyolefins, Business, Oil & Gas, Markets, Naphtha & other feedstocks, Company Strategy, financial meltdown, M&A, inventory management, chemical engineers, H2 2009 recovery, Nigel Davis
Koebbe joins Kolmar Americas to trade olefins

Gary Koebbe has joined Kolmar Americas, Inc as a trader for olefins and liquid petroleum gas (LPG), the company announced on Tuesday. The appointment was effective from 1 January 2009. Koebbe was previously president of Trammochem in Connecticut, US....

Published 27 Jan 2009 16:45 by ICIS Chemicals Confidential

Filed under: trading, Olefins, traders, Kolmar, Trammochem

1 2 3 4 5 Next > ... Last »

January 2009 - ICIS Blogs

Syndication

Recent Posts

Tags

Archives

Most economic forecasts are too optimistic

Cramer hits at Dow's Liveris

IMF says "demand has collapsed", sees "deflation risk"

Virgin - the world's funniest passenger complaint

NYC mayor plans to tax plastic bag

Lobbying for protection

Weight gain and business travel

Pencil sized plastic bags of milk

Two vehicles for the price of one

Video of LNG worker setting fire to his helmet

Wal-Mart to reduce detergent phosphates

Chemicals: The backbone of green cleaning

Dow Chemical moves to Plan B

Chem engineers back with avengeance

Koebbe joins Kolmar Americas to trade olefins