Malaysia Palm Oil Board, PIPOC – Palm Oil Conference

Kuala Lumpur, November 14^th –  17^th, 2011

I was pleasantly surprised to be asked to speak and chair a session at this large biannual event in Kuala Lumpur. Apparently the organizers, MPOB, are regular readers of this blog – another surprise; but as I learned the industry participants, both private enterprises and government affiliates are focused on continuing to move further and further downstream including into surfactants. In fact the week prior to PIPOC, we were fortunate to have a representative from the MPOB, Zainab Idris, speak at  our ICIS Asian Surfactant Conference in Singapore.

The PIPOC conference was big and extremely well produced and organized. The MPOB staff did a superb job keeping an attendance of around 2,600 delegates interested and co-ordinated for the whole four days. In addition to a number of parallel conference tracks (oleochemicals, food, regulatory, economics), there were tours of plantations and oleochemical plants plus a golf outing (in which I played and won some golf balls wrapped nicely in MPOB paper). The tour in which I participated was a really well done and in-depth visit to the KLK oleochemical plant just outside of KL.

Some important themes from the conference, for me, in no particular order:

Downstream: It seems that many of the plantation and palm oil producers are focused relentlessly on moving further downstream into oleochemicals and beyond, that is to surfactants and specialties. This aim is supported by governmental organizations like Sabah based POIC (Palm Oil Industrial Cluster) and the Pemandu (Performance Management and Delivery Unit) department of the government.
Organisation: The MPOB continues to impress as a very well organized and well run entity. The public / private partnership aspect of what they was particularly evident. In addition the quality of their data services and the regard in which they are held internationally, was impressive. I particularly enjoyed MPOB’s “palm shop” at the exhibition where $100 was well spent on a variety of publications and statistical collections relating to the industry.

Oleochemicals: The oleochemical conference – one of the parallel tracks – managed by Dr. Hazimah Binti Abu Hassan, was clearly a success, judging by the quantity and quality of delegates attending. I was privileged to present the first paper of the conference and to chair one of the sessions. The session that I chaired was a particular honor as it included outstanding speakers from P&G, Nexant and Kao. Some interesting points:

• Kao continues to be very focused on maximizing the commercial utility of palm based methylester sulfonates in their range of consumer cleaning products. Hiromitsu Takaoka gave an outstanding paper that echoed many of the sentiments expressed by Tsuneharu Mukaiyama at the prior weeks ICIS Surfactants Conference.
• Manuel Venegas, head of P&G’s Fabric Care Research in Cincinnati gave an outstanding review of some aspects of sustainability, emphasizing that a blend of a petrochemical branched alcohol based anionic surfactant with palm based MES can have a superior ecological and performance profile to either product formulated alone.
• Andrea Fitzgerald of Nexant, Thailand, gave an outstanding review of the Asian surfactant landscape with a focus on interesting new developments in bio-ethylene among other feedstocks.

First ICIS Asian  Surfactant Conference  – Singapore

November 10^th and 11^th,  2011

This event was the second in our series of surfactant conferences co-produced by Neil A Burns LLC and ICIS and the first as part of our formal conference venture (the New York conference in May being a test run). Well over 100 senior executives from the Asian surfactant industry filled the ballroom at the Intercontinental Hotel in Singapore for two days of high quality papers and networking around the subject of surfactants, oleochemicals and feedstocks. Feedback was sufficiently strong that we have already penciled in the second Asian conference for November 1st and 2nd of next year in Singapore. Before then, of course, we have the second world surfactants conference in New York, April 24^th and 25^th and most likely, an event in Eastern Europe focused on that dynamic region.

As chairman of this conference, I had the privilege of introducing and listening to an incredibly strong field of presenters who brought forward subject matter and content, simply not available anywhere else. Listed below, is just one interesting point that I took away from each speaker. To get the full benefit – as I always like to say, you just have to be there..

Neil A Burns LLC: As noted, I chaired the conference. My traditional worry that attendees might tire of my voice, was not warranted. The quantity and quality of questions and debate from the floor was outstanding for each paper. Rarely did I have to contribute with a question of my own. One other takeaway for me was the quality of the attendee list with  delegates from all five continents and representing the largest manufacturers and users of surfactants globally, such as Kao, P&G, Lion, Henkel, Unilever, Colgate, Stepan, Huntsman, Rhodia, BASF, Air Products, KLK, Wilmar, J&J and many others.

Lion Eco-Chemicals: Tsunieharu Maukaiyama, President – Mukaiyama San opened up the conference with a highly engaging overview of how his company integrates surfactant development and production into a market leading line of Lion consumer products, sold throughout Asia.

Emery Oleochemicals: Anthony Feng, Global Head of Strategy – Anthony made a strong case for an industry shift toward vertical integration from feedstocks to specialty surfactants, a strategy being pursued by Emery most recently via their ethoxylation JV with ERCA in the Netherlands.

Indian Oil Corporation (IOCL): Mathew George, Chief Manager – Mathew points out that the LAB market will be in a net deficit soon (2013); thus leaving room for a major new LAB plant in perhaps Northern India (perhaps to be built by IOCL? – no specific confirmation on that).

Seng Chye Cheah (retd. Acidchem): Mr. Cheah’s review of oleochemical capacities, current and forecast, is probably the most comprehensive available today. Wilmar’s newly announced 150 KMT/yr alcohol plant in India is sure to shake up the market there.

Rohen Specialties: Norman Ellard more than lived up to his reputation as an informative and engaging speaker with real expertise. Noted a new ethylene oxide derivative requirement using 70% EO content for cement additives, pulling in a lot of EO.

Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB): Zainab Idris gave the oil producers perspective with some interesting views on the use of Palm Oil in polyols. MPOB is Malaysias governments well funded and well organized palm trade body.

Kline and Company: Gillan exceeded even her top-ranked performance at the NY conference. She created some controversy with chart showing a 10 fold mark-up across the value chain from surfactant to personal care products. This engendered some  spirited debate with Vivek Sirohi of Unilever, and others.

Unilever (India): Vivek Sirohi, VP R&D pointed out that, in Asia, there is competition from non-surfactant invasive procedures (i.e. Botox) that will cut into surfactant volumes used in cosmetics and personal care.

Battelle Memorial Institute: Heliana Kola gave an outstanding detailed analysis of the composition of many leading Asian laundry detergents. Of note was the huge rise in enzyme usage across the board in 2009.

Galaxy Surfactants: Yogesh Kalra, leader of international business creation. 75% of the Indian shampoo market is still sold in “single dose” sachets.

Desmet Ballestra sPa: “The professor” Icilio Adami gave us all a college course on sulfonation – compressed into 45 minutes. MES indicated as a serious alternative to LAB.

Lazard Investment Bank: Matthew Knott – Vice President of Lazard the number one ranked investment bank in Chemicals – gave a comprehensive overview of M&A in surfactants and a fascinating study of how focus and scale drove shareholder value in Croda.

Frost and Sullivan: Krithika Tyagarajan, Director of Frost & Sullivan, drew some powerful correlations between the growth of various middle classes throughout Asia and the growth of surfactants volumes.

Brenntag: Henri Nejade, CEO Brenntag Asia Pacific – Every 2 seconds, Brenntag is delivering an order of chemicals to someone, somewhere in the world – an increasing number of them in Asis, where Brenntag has acquired a strong position.

Purac: Frederik Feddes, Marketing Manager, outlined the emerging use of a lactose backbones for high performance surfactants.

Solazyme: Tim Dummer, Senior Director of Business Development pointed that Algae can be engineered to consist of 80% of oil – with a chain length tailored to your needs (whether 12/14, 16, 18 – saturated or unsaturated) – exciting stuff for our business.

Elevance Renewable Sciences: Andy Schafer, EVP of Sales and Marketing – talked about the upcoming 180KMT/yr bio-refinery in Indonesia – JV’d with Wilmar –with big impact on the surfactant value chain in a number of areas (including laurics).

ICIS / Neil A Burns LLC – Surfactant Conferences Venture

I was very happy to see our company release the following news item late on Friday. This new venture comes out of the success of our surfactant conference produced with ICIS in New York in May. I am looking forward to seeing many friends and colleagues at future events, including the First ICIS Asian Surfactant Conference in Singapore, November 10th. I also encourage your feedback regarding content, format and location of these events going forward.

NEWS RELEASE: Neil A Burns LLC
For More Information Contact:                                                      FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Neil Burns: Tel +1 (732) 303 -7164
Managing Partner
Freehold, NJ
07728, USA
www.neilaburns.com
neil@neilaburns.com

July 20, 2011

Location: Freehold, NJ

REED BUSINESS INFORMATION LTD. (RBI) OF THE UK AND NEIL A. BURNS LLC OF THE USA HAVE ENTERED INTO A LONG-TERM AGREEMENT TO CO-PRODUCE CONFERENCES AND SEMINARS IN THE FIELD OF SURFACTANTS.

The conferences and seminars will be held globally in North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. The first event as part of this agreement will be the First ICIS Asian Surfactant Conference to be held at the Intercontinental Hotel, Singapore on November 10^th and 11th 2011. Further information and registration is available at www.icis.com/asiansurfactants

The agreement follows the two companies’ successful collaboration on the First ICIS World Surfactant Conference in New York in May 2011. The conference attracted over 150 senior managers from the surfactant industry with attendees and speakers representing companies such as AKZO, BASF, Church & Dwight, Colgate, Croda, Dow, Ecolab, Johnson &Johnson, Kao, LG, PQ, P&G, Reckitt Benckiser, Rhodia, SC Johnson, Stepan, and many others.

RBI, via their ICIS subsidiary, has an existing successful business holding conferences and training courses globally in many chemical areas including petrochemicals, oleochemicals, and base-oils. The company notes that the agreement with Neil A. Burns LLC enables them to expand their conference activities into a new key market with significant global potential.

Neil Burns, whose company Neil A Burns LLC has an existing business providing advisory and investment services in specialty chemicals with a particular focus on the surfactant value chain, will play a key role at the surfactant events as chair and/or speaker. Regarding the upcoming Asian conference, he states, “Due to the success of the first ICIS World Surfactant Conference in New York, earlier this year, we have been asked by many industry players to bring the conference to Asia. We are excited to be holding this event in the middle of the fastest growing, most dynamic surfactant market in the world today.”