Review of 2nd ICIS Asian Surfactant Conference
Singapore November 1st and 2nd, 2012
I was again very pleased to be able to co-produce and chair the fifth surfactant conference in our series with ICIS. This time – the second Asian conference, held in Singapore, at the Marina Bay Sands hotel and convention center. You will get a flavor of the agenda here.
Over 100 friends and colleagues from throughout Asia spent one and a half days engrossed as we heard from some of the leading companies in the region share their knowledge and experience regarding the most dynamic surfactant market in the world.
Here, I make a point or two regarding each of the speakers and hopefully give you a flavor of the type of event that we will produce coming up, May 16th and 17th, 2013 at the Third ICIS World Surfactants Conference in New York. Some of the links below, may require a subscription to ICIS in order to read. Also, you know my philosophy is “you gotta be there” to get the full benefit from these conferences, so this is not intended to be a write up / substitute for being there. !
My opening remarks featured a review of vertical integration in the Asian surfactants industry along with some by music by Blue Öyster Cult (as I said, you have to be there..)
First up, Adam Jarczyck of Frontier Strategy group gave an outstanding review of emerging markets and the impact of various macroeconomic trends on our industry.
A return speaker, Krithika Tyagarajan of Frost and Sullivan gave an outstanding set of insights into the fatty acids and alcohols markets with some sobering statistics on capacity additions, especially in Asia.
“Il Professore”, Icilio Adami of Ballestra delivered a college level course on MES with production, marketing, applications and economic information, simply unavailable elsewhere.
Vinay Garg, a new speaker, past attendee, at our conference outlined a really fascinating view of what India Glycols is doing in renewable EO and engendered some lively debate and discussion to boot.
Andrea Fitzgerald of Nexant in Thailand did an outstanding job with some in-depth market and economic analysis of the changing feedstock slate for surfactants. Great to see also some intense discussions taking place around here paper during and after the conference.
After lunch, Radesh Welling, President at VVF of India delivered an extremely thought provoking treatise on supply chain partnerships in oleochemicals. Does it all have to be so transactional? Maybe not.
David Jago of Mintel brought the focus of the conference right out to the very end of the value chain with some great data and insights into the Asian HI&I market.
Our good friend, Peter Smith of Unilever then gave the conference the customers eye view with a focus on Asia. Having lived for 5 years in Singapore, Peter knows the business in this region first hand.
Kline and Company, another great friend of our conference series, delivered a great paper by Rob Field-Marsham analyzing the Chinese and Indian specialty surfactant markets.
P&G Opened Day 2 with our dynamic speaker, Tom Nelson who reprised “what it takes” to succeed in the Asian surfactant value chain – from P&G ‘s (and Tom’s) unique perspective.
Harish Davey, another return speaker from New York in April, delivered fascinating insights into the Indian surfactant market and Reliance’s role in this dynamic economy.
Elevance continued their story with Andy Corr, outlining their planned entry in a big way, to the surfactant value chain.
Solazyme, also good friends of our series, continued to share progress and results on their commercialization path with a superb paper from Tim Dummer.
The final three papers featured three important but not so well known Asian surfactant companies.
Dr. Toshiyuki Suzuki of Nikkol gave an incredibly detailed review of the personal care market in Japan.
Our friend Vishal Goenka of Sterling Auxiliaries painted a detailed and nuanced picture of the Indian Surfactants market and of Sterling itself; truly a company to watch.
Last up was Mitsuo Matsuda of Nicca Chemical of Japan delivered a detailed and thoughtful analysis of the history and future of the Asian specialty surfactant market.
In summary, I can say that the quality of the speakers – and the attendees was outstanding. It was truly an honor to chair such an event. Registration for our next event in New York is now open. I look forward to seeing many old and new friends there.