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Greetings from Orlando. It’s good to see the ACI annual meeting back to full strength this year and to catch up with old friends and meet some new folks too. As usual, we don’t report hearsay and tittle-tattle here on the blog. All’s we have here in the news section is what is already in the public domain, usually reported by my friends and partners at ICIS. If you really want to hear the latest ACI gossip, then go the meeting. As I always, say – you gotta be there! . One thing I did pick up this week, is that we have a lot of new readers of the blog. Welcome! We do music here also. It’s usually at the end and so you can skip it if you like. But you shouldn’t. The musical choices of this blog have been rated as impeccable by an independent global panel of experts, which I quickly assembled in Orlando over the past few days. Now you know. The other thing you should know as a new reader is that I relentlessly, but transparently, shill for my other interests here. One such interest is the upcoming World Surfactant Conference coming up, May…

Happy New Year my dear readers. We have the month’s news and some end of year music picks. This month’s promised fiction will come to you via a link at the end of the blog to a site I like which is publishing some interesting short stories. Now – straight into the news, which, as always, comes to us courtesy of our good friends at ICIS. Of course, I can’t kick off the year without mentioning that the 13th World Surfactants Conference, will again be held in Jersey City at the Hyatt on May 4th and 5th. Register here https://events.icis.com/website/8544/ OK – now the news. ICIS has published some good end of year summaries and I’ll excerpt some of the surfactant relevant ones here. First up, according to ICIS the European fatty alcohols market is rather subdued looking ahead to 2023.  Supply is widely available, while downstream demand from the ethoxylates market is weak for the first quarter.  “Ethoxylates demand is very poor […] It’s clear the demand is a strong reduction,” said a producer. Feedstocks have also trended downwards in recent months. Supply, demand and palm kernel oil (PKO) costs are the main factors discussed in Q1 contract negotiations….

It’s strictly business this month, with little time for music or general chit- chat. We’re saving that all for next month with a short story and some musical exploration – maybe combined, let’s see. The news is also somewhat slim. Nothing to read into that, really, just natural variation, I think. So now – straight to the News, which as usual is largely courtesy of our good friends at ICIS. Encouraging news out of Louisiana as Sasol reported that it expects to complete repair work at its Ziegler alcohol unit at Lake Charles, Louisiana, by the end of the first quarter of 2023, subject to delivery of equipment. The plant was damaged in a fire on 15 October. Sasol was able to restart alcohol production at 50% utilisation during November, while isolating the damaged section for repairs, it said. The timeline to resuming full production rates depends on completion of the repair work. The fire’s impact on production prompted Sasol to declare force majeure on supply of US Ziegler alcohols and derivative products in October. The force majeure will be lifted as soon as production rates and inventory levels improve, the company said. Meanwhile in Asia, the alcohol ethoxylate picture continues to…

Surfactants Monthly  –  September 2022 This month’s blog is one which chronicles, almost uniformly, a downward trend in pricing. This you may cheer you or not, depending on your perspective. There is no doubt that supply chain tightness is loosening and that is a good thing. Prices will find their own level in the coming months. I recently paid, through gritted teeth, an invoice on which was listed a “supply chain surcharge”. Take it off already! It’s annoying. The roller-coaster has surely turned. We’ll jump straight into the news now and, if we have time, maybe get into some music at the end. As always, a big shoutout and thanks to my friends and colleagues at ICIS for the news. I subscribe and you should too. At the end of the month and, as I think we predicted in last month’s blog, September US ethylene oxide (EO) contracts were assessed at 64.55 cents/lb ($1,423.07/tonne) The decrease in EO contract prices was due to a decrease in October ethylene contract prices. The supply of EO remains tight following a planned maintenance on a Seadrift, Texas plant, however, the market is expected to balance in Q4. Meanwhile in Europe European ethylene oxide…