Regional price assessments, published daily or weekly, enabling you to keep track of trading prices, understand price drivers/fluctuations and set a benchmark for contract price settl 
ements. ICIS offers reports on over 180 commodities across the global petrochemical, energy and fertilizer markets. Information covered in our price reports includes:
Information is accessed online, via the ICIS dashboard service and is configurable to suit your preferences.
Produced by the ICIS Consulting team, these reports give a robust rolling 12-month price forecast, trade balances and in-depth analysis into where markets are heading – providing a valuable tool to support your short- to medium-term plans.
ICIS pricing intelligence is delivered to you online via the ICIS dashboard. Here you can view your reports and also access other useful services including related news, analysis, historical data and market alerts.
ICIS dashboard also makes it easy for you to create pricing charts, download price history and export data to create tailored analytical models.
ICIS weekly margin reports deliver the detail you need to understand how production costs and prices are affecting margins, enabling you to judge the likely impact on your business and optimise your upstream and downstream business decisions.
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The Supply and Demand Window on the ICIS Dashboard provides a snapshot view of historical and forecast information for supply and demand, production capacity and trade flows – a key tool to help safeguard future investments within the chemicals market.
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including updates on production, shutdowns and key transacted deals, keeping you informed of market developments as they happen. The ICIS news service allows you to customise the market alerts delivered to your email inbox, providing the business-critical information you need straightaway.
An expert view of supply and demand comprising four fully-reconciled databases, giving you access to extensive data for more than 100 markets. Information is included on global and regional trade flows, production, capacity and sources of demand in the short-, medium- and long-term. Data can be downloaded, customised and queried to support your planning requirements and your strategic decisions.
ICIS provides specialist training courses across the global petrochemicals, base oils and fertilizers industries. Our training team of industry experts can help you increase your knowledge of the industry and gain the insight and know-how needed to operate and trade effectively.
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Working closely with you to understand your strategies, challenges and ambitions, the ICIS consulting team deliver tailored advice and solutions to suit your unique requirements. With many years’ experience of guiding business leadership teams, we show you how market conditions can make a positive or negative impact on your long-term plans.
ICIS expert consultants can provide your organisation with the insight, intelligence and data needed to build and grow your business in China. We can help you to gain a clear view on the short and long-term supply and demand picture in the chemicals, energy, iron and steel, non-ferrous metals and paper and pulp markets in China.
ICIS price assessments are based on information gathered from a wide cross-section of the market, comprising consumers, producers, traders and distributors from more than 250 reporters world-wide. Confirmed deals, verified by both buyer and seller, provide the foundation of our price assessments.
Our in-depth market knowledge drives our specialist focus, as we recognise the importance of individual market dynamics and not a one-size-fits-all approach.
Over 25 years of reporting on key chemicals markets, including Linear alkylbenzene & sulphonate, has brought global recognition of our methodology as being unbiased, authoritative and rigorous in preserving our editorial integrity. Our global network of reporters in Houston, London, Singapore, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Mumbai, Perth and Moscow ensures unrivalled coverage of established and emerging markets.
Linear alkylbenzene (LAB) is an organic compound with the formula C6H5CnH2n+1, where n is typically between 11 and 12. LAB is used almost wholly as an intermediate in the production of linear alkylbenzene sulphonate (LAS), which is a surfactant.
In the past five decades, LAB has emerged as an important feedstock for producing biodegradable detergents and other cleaners. Normal paraffin (n-paraffin) and benzene are the main feedstocks for LAB. High-purity n-paraffin is obtained by hydrotreating jet kerosene. This is then dehydrogenated to form linear olefins, which are then exposed to benzene in the presence of a catalyst to produce LAB. There are three types of catalysts used in producing LAB. Hydrogen fluoride (HF) is the major catalyst used.
The second type of catalyst used is aluminium chloride (AlCl3), but it is getting phased out. The HF process, in particular, was seen to be the most commercially viable. However, because of environmental concerns around the use of HF, it has been replaced since 1995 by a fixed bed catalyst system – for example, the DETAL process, which does not use HF.
Surfactant LAS, also known as linear alkylbenzene sulphonic acid (LABSA), is typically sold at a 96% minimum purity level in liquid state. LAS is used widely in the manufacture of detergents for household and industrial use. The common use form is as a sodium salt. One tonne of LAS uses around 0.77 tonnes of LAB.
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