Apr 04
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Surfactants Monthly – March 2021

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Surfactants Monthly – March 2021 Happy Easter and Passover. A time of deliverance and re-birth for many of our readers and perhaps my favourite time of year. By the way, I can’t help noting that this month is chock full of news – kinda-like those Easter egss full of Cadbury’s buttons.. Before I muse further (scroll to the end), commercial needs dictate that I mention our upcoming online surfactants conference on 25th – 27th of May. Visit the link and check it out and register to attend. It’s not free, this time,  but it’s worth the price of admission. As a foretaste, if you like, or indeed a sort of literary foreshadowing of what we’ll be dealing with at the event, there is an interview of me by the great Rochelle Ross of ICIS, that you can access at this link. You’ll have to give your contact info to ICIS to see it but don’t worry, they are GDPR, strict constructionists and will not abuse your data – at all. You might have noticed that in our Linkedin group (you’re not a member?!?! Join now, please.) a bit of activity with polls. Here are some interesting results – much of…

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Mar 01
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Surfactants Monthly – February 2021

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Surfactants Monthly February 2021 For a short month, February had a lot of news. Of course, the biggest was related to the extreme low temperatures in Texas and surrounding areas and the impact on the chemical industry. Rather than detail it all here – if it affected you directly, you were tracking real-time – I’ll just note 2 things. First –  S&P’s Platts reported last week something that caught our attention. The extreme weather knocked 75% of all 40 million mt/year of US ethylene capacity offline, including 100% of ethylene capacity in Texas.  The vulnerability of the US Gulf Coast to weather events is not news. Neither is the concentration of a strategically important industry in this area. Reminders come around every so many years, usually in the form of Hurricanes, including recently Katrina / Rita in 2005, Ike in 2008 and Harvey in 2017. There’s an admonition about having too many really important things in one place – erm.. something about eggs. Well, those strategically important chemical eggs are all crammed into a very fragile, weather-beaten basket and, among other things, it’s a national security risk. Second – for the real nitty gritty useful detail, you gotta go to…

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Jan 30
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Surfactants Monthly – January 2021

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Surfactants Monthly – January 2021 Well, it was a bit different to last January, eh? No meetings in Orlando and that nice mid-winter golf outing on the Sunday. But look, most of us are working, getting a nice salary and not facing foreclosure, eviction and bankruptcy unlike folks in some industries.  Something here for you to look forward to: Our upcoming slate of surfactants conferences for ’21 – still online.  We have i) World on 25 – 27th May and ii) EU/Asia on 9 – 10th November. Go to the site for more information . We also have the training courses starting March 9th.  Right now, we are not taking registrations, but you can “register interest” here . So you might want to do that. I want to  highlight particularly the awards. We are re-launching and refurbishing these as they are becoming a hugely popular feature. By the way, if you want to see what I looked like without a haircut in the first US lockdown in 2020 see the video I recorded to outline our training courses. If you’d rather not, you can get all the key information on the site, without, thankfully, having to see the video. This…

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Jan 05
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December 2020 – Monthly Review

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December 2020 – Monthly Surfactants Review Happy New Year, my dear readers and thanks for all your great comments and expressions of support over the past year. Every time, someone tells me they read these blogs, I get a bit of a chill. It’s excitement mingled with some pride, obviously but also a bit of nervousness. If folks are really reading this stuff, it had better be good – or at the very least, not boring. The one commandment I have for our blog here is “above all, do not be boring”. If this ever happens, please do let me know, won’t you? A great clutch of news items this month. As always, most of the news is provided courtesy of my good friends at ICIS. I get no recompense from them for promoting their service, but, as you know, we produce a series of conferences together. In any case, if you like what you read here or experience at the conferences, you should subscribe to their stuff. Fair enough? Spoiler alert: The end of the blog contains what I believe to the biggest news of the month, if not the year – out of Brazil. It’s not too surprising…

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Dec 06
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Surfactants Monthly – November 2020

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Surfactants Monthly November 2020 We had an election. I checked outside every morning this past month. The sun rises (eventually) and when I step onto the cold bathroom tile and extend my left hand to flick the light switch, the lights light, every, single, time. Turn on the shower and, wow, beautiful hot/warm/turbulent-flow water at just-the-right pressure gushes forth, releasing also a rather pleasant steam cloud – just like the past thousands of mornings. I step into the plate glass enclosure (is this getting too graphic for you? Don’t worry, we cherish our G-rating at the blog) and confront 5 different body washes and soaps at eye-level. I ignore all of them and grab my Irish Spring off its own shelf. Aaah the fragrant aroma of the old country… top o’ the morning to you, world. I stretch a vocal chord or two and summon one of the household gods. Alexa, play the best guitarist. Bucky Pizzarelli fills the translucent temple with a glissando. Alexa – not funny. Dave, Michael, Alex and Eddie enter stage left and ..tcchmff, tttlnk, tttlnk, waoawohhhhng.. Eruption erm, well, erupts into consciousness. Pulse quickens. Four-decade old memories float up, of a younger, leaner, more testosterone-drenched…

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Nov 01
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Surfactants Monthly – October 2020

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October 2020 – Monthly Review What a month! Another record for basic surfactants but – what will we all be doing at the end of January? We won’t, most likely, be in Orlando, FL as the ACI has made the prudent decision to go virtual for their annual meeting. Not unexpected but I’m sure I’ll miss being there in person and I expect you will too. No matter, the industry as a whole does great and continue to …. what? You know.. “make civilization civilized”. Our next surfactant event comes up in about a week on November 10th. It’s the digital European and Asian Surfactant Conference. It’s free, but you have to register or you may be locked out for platform capacity reasons. Register here. Here’s something to think about. I’ve been in and around surfactants for almost 40 years. And, like most people, I’ve been a daily surfactant user for almost 60 years. I still meet people that cannot even pronounce the word surfactants – and that includes some lifelong friends. Now and again, I’ll come across someone (not in the course of business) who knows what they are and what they do and that our entire civilized world…

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Oct 04
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Surfactants Monthly – September 2020

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Surfactants Monthly September 2020 There’s a lot to cover this month and so – straight into the news: Some minor news first from Sasol. We’ll cover the big news at the end of the column, for which this picture is a summary: Early in September, Sasol expected power to be restored to its Lake Charles site in Louisiana by early to mid-October, the company said in a statement.  The site has been shut since 25 August, ahead of Hurricane Laura.  “The critical path for startup is restoring reliable external electrical power service from Entergy, Sasol’s local provider,” Sasol said in the emailed statement.  “Entergy currently expects full load service, industrial-level reliability power will be available to Sasol and other industrial partners in Lake Charles by early-to-mid October,” Sasol added. “Sasol’s site damage assessment is well-advanced as well as debris removal from site,” the company said. “Sasol will communicate the repair scope and estimated timelines when complete.  “We can confirm there was wind damage to the cooling towers as well as some insulation and building damage but maintain no apparent damage to major process equipment at this stage.”  The company said several hundred contractors are performing cleanup and restoration work to…

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Sep 07
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Surfactants Monthy August 2020

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Surfactants Monthly August & Early September 2020 First the ads: Our 2020 surfactants conference, September 16 – 18th  is online and free (free of charge – yes that’s right!). Go to this link and register. You gotta register. Can’t just show up on the day. There is a practical limit to how many people can be accommodated on the platform. I don’t know what that is but we have well over 500 already. Sign up. https://www.icisevents.com/ehome/index.php?eventid=200176800& That’s all the ads I have for you this week. From here on it’s solid red meat – that is news. No music or musings this time. We’ll have some of that at the conference. The news: As expected, Oxiteno had a pretty good second quarter as ICIS reported. Second-quarter operating income was positive versus a loss from the same period in 2019 because sales rose faster than costs (ah yes, that is the way to do it, I’m told). The following shows the company’s financial performance. Figures are in millions of reais (R). Rm Q2 20 Q2 19 % Sales 1,201.0 1,066.3 12.6 Cost of goods 973.1 901.4 8.0 Gross profit 227.9 165 38.1 Operating income 50.1 -7.2 – Source: Oxiteno Oxiteno attributed…

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Aug 02
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Surfactants Monthly – July 2020

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Surfactants Monthly – July 2020 Lots of interesting news this month, essentially all of it coming to us courtesy of ICIS and so, I will plug again their online services. Check them out and subscribe if you like what you see. I get nothing if you do, by the way. I just happen to like those guys as I’ve been working with them now for 10 years on my conferences. Speaking of conferences, our surfactants events this year will be all online in super-high quality digital format. We’ll bring you the same relevant topics and highly original speakers you have come to expect along with a lot of new stuff that we want to try (how about a meditation session for example?).  You will now be a better-informed more highly-educated and just all round better person coming out of these events. But there’s more. The events this year are free. That’s right. It’s not a typo. They are free of charge. No strings attached. We want to support the industry and so we are doing it all absolutely free. You have to register and I encourage you to do so soon as there will be a practical limit to attendees…

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Jul 05
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Surfactants Monthly – June 2020

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Surfactants Monthly – June 2020 Guide to this month’s huge blog post – in order of the sections below: Business – dates for your calendar Musings – thoughts, music videos. You know the stuff we do News – what happened in surfactants in June Guest Posts – from Clariant and Modular Genetics More Musings – there’s a Rush video this month, so keep reading End Business Surfactants Training Course July 14- 16th. This is the first fully online high production value digital offering in the surfactants space. It’ll cost you but it’s worth it. The course focuses on the business of surfactants and is a brand new digital version of the hugely successful course I have taught for 8 years. Sign up here . The 10th World Surfactactants Conference will place – online – September 14 – 16th. Stay tuned for a great announcement about this. It will be unique and I believe you will love it. P2 Presents – Know Your Customer July 9th at 10.00 AM and 2.00 PM. This is free! We go deep into the heart and mind of a cosmetics and makeup consumer. What can we, as ingredient suppliers and brand managers, learn from what…

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Jun 06
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Surfactants Monthly – May (and early June) 2020

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Surfactants Monthly – May (and early June) This May was to have been the month of the 10th ICIS World Surfactants Conference in Jersey City, co-produced by your correspondent. Surfactants X as I called it in those super-bowl daydream moments. I’d alternately assume the personas of Bill Bellichick, Vince Lombardi, Joe Montana, George Best and Tom Brady (“hey Gisele, get in on this selfie with Tiger, Cardi and Oprah!”). Then I’d come to in my study where I’ve been for the last 3 months, with the dog’s head resting on my knee. Fine. I have a big-screen TV now for video calls and have that badge of honor of the modern day ‘net warrior, zoom neck (it’s a thing. Google it). I have a super-hi-def streaming cam that faithfully details every facial imperfection across 14 timezones. A studio mic that detects every prevarication, obfuscation and deflection in my voice. And on top of all this, United has extended my exalted elite status through to the end of ’21. Is this not truly the best of all possible worlds!? The conference did not happen, of course. But stay tuned to this blog. We have some very special things planned for this…

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May 03
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Surfactants Monthly – April 2020

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Surfactants Monthly – April 2020 The news this month, as in other months, comes from ICIS and I continue to encourage you to subscribe, as I do , to their many great services. We’ll get straight into it first and then I’ll follow the news with a brief editorial on COVID, health, wellness and freedom –  accompanied by a couple of American punk rock classics. As you might expect with what is going on in oil markets, the month started with US March ethylene oxide (EO) contracts being settled at a decrease, to the lowest level since summer 2012, on lower upstream ethylene contracts. Contracts are assessed at 46.4-55.9 cents/lb ($1,023-1,232/tonne) FOB (free on board) US Gulf. March feedstock ethylene contracts settled at a decrease of 2.25 cents/lb to 21.75 cents/lb, their lowest level since 2002.   In other unsurprising news: US-based polyurethanes and chemicals producer Huntsman Corp will hit the pause button on mergers and acquisitions (M&A), its CEO said in an interview with ICIS. “Certainly at this point we’re taking a pause just because cash is king. Our first and foremost responsibility to our shareholders is to make sure we have a strong balance sheet,” said CEO Peter…

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Apr 09
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Surfactants Monthly March (and Early April)

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March 2020 Surfactants Monthly – Abbreviated This month we have an abbreviated column due to a lot of other things going on. Let’s see.. tips and tricks for working from home? Nah.. Looking good on zoom calls? Nope.. How it’s really neighborly on our street now.. I think you’ve read all that already. I would, however, like you to consider joining our P2 Science CT Foodbank Fund Drive. Click the link and support folks who, through no fault of their own are out of work and out of money. I read that a third of renters are late paying April’s rent. It’s those people. You’re living paycheck to paycheck and then the government shuts down the economy, so we all don’t get infected. It’s never happened before. Many had their livelihoods taken away. Many were forced to work from home in their PJ’s. The latter should help the former. Another link to consider: If you want to stay abreast of developments in brand new, renewable, cosmetics polymers, then join the P2 webcast Thursday April 9th at 1 PM Eastern. And one more, if you’re up for it. The 10th ICIS World Surfactants Conference has been shifted back to September 16th…

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Mar 01
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Surfactants Monthly – February 2020

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Surfactants Monthly – February 2020 I write this month’s blog safely self-isolated in the study of a suburban New Jersey house. A trip to Home Depot this morning was cancelled out of an abundance of corona-caution and so the needed repairs in the downstairs bathroom will have to be postponed until it’s safe to visit busy hardware stores again – perhaps some time next year, hopefully. Oh well, more time to write the blog. Saw a great movie on Netflix, Friday. The invention of lying, with Ricky Gervais. It’s from 2009 and panned by most critics, so well worth a look. It’s set in an alternative present in which humans have evolved unable ever to tell a lie, except our protagonist, Gervais, who wreaks some havoc along the way to finally getting the girl, (Jennifer Garner) and learning a good lesson. Yeah it’s corny and soppy but that sometimes makes a truly great movie for me. A classic scene is this one, where we get to see a Coke commercial in this alternative, brutally honest, world. Regular readers and attendees at my conferences will know why I find this commercial absolutely delightful – and why I seem to have watched…

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Feb 09
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January 2020 – Monthly Review

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January 2020 – Surfactants Monthly Review Highlights of this month, of course, include the ACI annual meeting in Orlando. Many great sessions, some organized, some spontaneous. If you’re expecting Page 6  gossip, of the what-Meghan-told Harry, what Kim wore and what Cardi did, type. Sorry. We don’t do that here. To know all that stuff, you gotta be there. Like a thousand of our colleagues were. This blog is brought to you by Desmet Ballestra. I’ve always wanted to say that. Unfortunately it’s not true. No money changed hands to have me run the ad below. It’s interesting and relevant to the dioxane issue, so I’m putting it in here. And I guess I can say that the dioxane matter was extensively discussed at ACI. It’s a big deal if you’re a sulfonator or a user of ether sulfates in your cleaning products. You can be assured that we’ll have a number of views on this topic at our conference in May. Last month’s editorial on Cardi B and Mother Theresa actually, surprisingly, got some positive feedback, but don’t worry – this blog will be strictly the news until the, clearly marked, final section where we dip into the lyrics…

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Jan 18
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2020 New Year’s Editorial

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2020 – New Year’s Editorial Note to Readers:    Neil Peart died last week, age 67. I’m sad, of course. Also reflective; as I look back, fondly, on 45 years of beautiful, original, technically brilliant and heartfelt music. Readers of the blog and the patient folks who have generously sat through my opening remarks at our conferences, know of my fascination, since the age of 15, with Rush. I love Rush. I remember a few years ago in Jersey City, when I started the day with a study of the evolution of one Rush song. We listened to (a cut from ) the first 1974 recording, then the 1976 live version – and I remember the look on some people’s faces as they thought “oh hell, he’s going to go through the last 40 years, two years at a time!” We didn’t of course and the crowd stuck with me as I used some tortured logic to make all this relevant to our beautiful, original, technically brilliant – and heartfelt – corner of the chemical industry. So it first seemed a bit inappropriate to publish the blog I had largely already written over Christmas for this editorial, about an artist that…

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