Surfactants Monthly - March 2025
Blog – March 2025
March was an active month in surfactants and we try to cover it all here. By the way, are you aware of our YouTube channel? Blog readers might find it interesting as we seek to cover in more or less 5 minutes some interesting surfactants matters. Check it out and let me know your thoughts. https://www.youtube.com/@neilaburns. Of course, our self-promotional paragraph wouldn't be complete without a good plug of the 15th World Surfactants Conference in NJ, May 7 – 8th. Please register now as I don't want you to be left out. And also don't forget the one day in-person course on May 6th – Surfactant Business Essentials – taught be me. Who’ll be there? Actually it’s easier to list who won’t be there. No-one. Except maybe you, if you don’t book soon. Here’s the link https://events.icis.com/website/8544/ . See you in May.
Jersey City Vibes
The News:
For our macroeconomics coverage today, we go first to the Spring Chemical Insights newsletter from Grace Matthews, an investment bank. In the opening paragraph, they note:
Today, as we approach the end of the first quarter, we remain confident in growth in both the chemicals & materials science industry as well as overall M&A activity in the year ahead. However, we also need to acknowledge that the tone in the industry is now balancing positivity with a general sense of uncertainty. [Yep, I’d say that gels with what I’m seeing and hearing.]
There follows a bunch of quotes from various companies, many of are somewhat even-handed [or anodyne if you like] as you might expect. I must say though, I liked this one from the CEO of Evonik, at surfactants (among other things) producer. He seems quite happy. Christian Kullmann (CEO & Chairman of the Executive Board of Evonik): “We produce local for local. For example, we produced 80% of our sales locally in the U.S. This means that we would rather benefit from any tariffs in the form of higher selling prices in the region.” The CEO of Ecolab, a surfactant (among other things) user seemed almost as happy. Christophe Beck (CEO & Chairman of the Board of Ecolab): "We don't see a big impact on our business for a very simple reason that 92% of what we sell is produced locally. And in places like China...99% of what we sell is produced locally."
Anyway, let’s get to some numbers. The average trading EV to EBITDA multiple of a basket of public chemical companies stands now at just a touch below the 10 year average, at 11.1X. Here it is:
Next, to put this multiple information into context, we go to Balmoral investment bank and their 2024 newsletter for this interesting graph.
And then further from their newsletter, some year end trading multiple information for various publicly traded chemical companies including, Dow at 8.9X, BASF 10.0X, Eastman 9.0X, Clariant 8.8X and Croda 18.0X.
More News:
Hot off the WSJ press at the beginning of the month: Shell Explores Sale of Chemicals Assets in U.S. and Europe – the headline says. Shell has retained Morgan Stanley to explore a sale of chemicals assets. This includes the big Deer Park facility in Texas, which produces a range of chemicals such as light and heavy olefins, which can be used to make pharmaceuticals, surfactants, adhesives and wire coating. The site is located next to a refinery, which Shell previously sold its stake in to Pemex of Mexico.
Other Shell chemical plants are in Pennsylvania and Louisiana in the U.S. In Europe - U.K., Germany and the Netherlands. [Please write me with projections of the ultimate buyer(s). WSJ things Middle Eastern sovereign funds or big PE. Let’s see..]
Lotta Chemicals!
Reuters reported [rather uncharitably I thought] that Clariant's underlying core profit misses forecasts, shares slump. [ouch!]. The article goes on to note that Clariant missed market expectations for fourth-quarter adjusted core earnings, sending its shares 11% lower in early trading, after its Care Chemicals unit was hit by lower seasonal business in the aviation and refinery end markets. The company said its adjusted EBITDA grew 1% to 160 million Swiss francs ($177.6 million) in the quarter, below analysts' forecast of 181 million francs in a company-provided poll. Clariant again confirmed its 2025 targets for an EBITDA margin of 17% to 18% and sales growth of 3% to 5% in local currency. However, CEO Conrad Keijzer said during a press call that the sales growth would likely be at the lower end of the guided range given the challenging market conditions. The energy-intensive chemicals sector has seen an unprecedented drop in order volumes over the past two years, as customers sought to reduce inventories amid soaring energy prices, high inflation and escalating geopolitical tensions. This year, the European industry will face another challenge in the form of U.S. President Donald Trump's planned 25% tariffs on imports from the European Union. "Tariffs are not good for business. They're not good for economic growth. They're not good for inflation," Keijzer said. He said the tariffs would not directly hit Clariant, which typically produces chemicals locally at its 68 sites around the world. It also does not have any local U.S. competitors in the segments it is active in, Keijzer added. [Interesting. Let’s see]
Here's the 4th Quarter in Care Chemicals for Clariant (where most of the surfactants are). Not Great.
And here’s the full year Care snapshot. [again not great in terms of growth but not a bad EBITDA margin.
Continuing with interesting headlines; the WSJ, earlier in the month asked the question: Emulsifiers Make Food More Appealing. Do They Also Make You Sick? Emulsifiers, or course, are surfactants. And we have long extolled the virtues of the market in food additives for surfactants. Not the virtues of the surfactants themselves in food, of course. On that, we remain agnostic, although we try not to eat them. The article goes on to note that diets high in ultra-processed foods are associated with health problems [you don’t say!] and emulsifiers may be a partial explanation. Oh oh. Surfactants the new cigarettes? No – that’s alcohol. Get in line. Anyway it has a lot to do with the microbiome, apparently. The articles notes a few potentially guilty ingredients, including carboxymethylcellulose, polysorbate 80, soy lecithin and guar gum. Hmm. There were studies involving 92,000 – 104,000 that established a correlation with diabetes one with 16 people (that’s one six) that implied causation of microbiome problems. So – not conclusive. The journal says avoiding ultra processed foods is not realistic for a lot of us – like avoiding the rain I guess. Me personally. I’m not eating that stuff.
What’s in the bowl though, Ashley? (Tisdale, whose connection to the world of surfactants needs to be inferred from previous issues of the blog).
BASF’s full year ‘24 results are in and they presented them to analysts at the end of February. Key points:\
· Sales down 5.3%. EBITDA up or down depending on whether you count special items.
· Nutrition and Care (which is where the surfactants are): Sales down 1.9%. Volume up 5.2%. Prices down 5.2%. Cashflow down to negative 31 Million Euros from positive 503 in 2023, which I’m assuming is to do with all the capex in China at Zhanjiang.
· Digging in further to Nutrition & Care we see volume growth in Care (which is the surfactant part of N&C) offset by lower prices.
I hope things pan out for them in China. A lot is riding on the Zhanjiang site which we’ve written about previously in the blog. It starts up this year, 2025. Let’s see.
The March edition of the AOCS INFORM magazine published a nice article on detergents. I’ll provide a few bullet point highlights but you should read the whole thing yourself (and join AOCS while you’re at it).
· 4% of household electricity consumption is used doing laundry.
· The key enzymes in there for specific stains are:
o Proteases: Proteins in blood, egg, grass, sweat
o Amylases: Starches, such as pasta and chocolate
o Lipases: Fats in fatty foods and oils
o Cellulases: Natural cotton fibers to remove pills
o Mannanases: Sticky gums that are in foods like
o mayonnaise and cosmetics
· Here’s an interesting snippet from Larisa Reyes, R&D at Dow: Another way to make detergents more compact could be by using extended surfactants, which as far as is known, are not yet included in products sold today. With such molecules, a linker is inserted where the head and tail of a surfactant meet and it serves as a gradual polarity transition zone. The slightly polar linker extends the reach of the hydrophilic head into water and the hydrophobic tail into oil, which improves solubilization, making the detergent more powerful. Typically, polypropylene oxide (PO) groups are placed at the tail and ethylene oxide groups are placed at the head.
o Reyes has developed two new extended surfactants called advanced prototypes 3 and 10 (AP-3 and AP-10). The new molecules are based on PO-modified AE tweaked and optimized to. They found that when concentrating these prototypes into a detergent they averted a potential challenge with gelation that is common with nonionic surfactants, like AE.
o [so look this sounds super – interesting. Larisa – I would love to learn more.]
Unilever continues to have some cool things going on in and around surfactants. Not surprising as surfactants has to be one of their biggest inputs by mass into their products, globally. There’s an interesting piece on their website that I must have missed recently, from which I’ll quote. .. developing entirely new chemistry can also sometimes unearth other unexpected benefits along the way. This happened with our work on rhamnolipids: a 100% renewable and biodegradable ingredient, which delivers superior cleaning performance as well as exceptional skincare benefits. We’re aiming for a similar outcome from our partnership with Econic Technologies, a deep-tech start-up pioneering renewable carbon solutions. Together we’re exploring how we can transform CO2 into usable carbon to create fossil-free raw materials for our household cleaning and laundry products.
The article continues : CO2 is a problem for the world because it’s such an incredibly stable molecule. All of the atoms are as happy as they could possibly be, covalently bound together. The challenge – of turning CO2 into useful carbon – is how you break that bond. There are various ways you can do that, for example, through fermentation or bioprocesses. Or you can do it through catalysis – the process of adding a catalyst to facilitate a reaction – which is how Econic’s patented technology works.
One benefit of this method over others is that it can take place at a relatively low pressure and temperature, meaning it can be retrofitted into existing production facilities. Polyurethane products that incorporate materials made using this process are due on sale later this year. But Econic’s work with Unilever is its first venture into household cleaning. As Keith Wiggins, Econic Technologies CEO, says: “This partnership is incredibly important for us, as it’s a big step towards fulfilling Econic’s overall purpose, which is to take CO2 and turn it into usable carbon that can enhance the performance of products we all use every day.”
I think I’m giving Nicola Peltz too much free publicity so here’s some for Econic,
So it seems that progress is being made in the war on EO – by the EO side, that is. On March 12th , the ACC (American Chemistry Council) released a statement that reads in part: .. commending the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) decision to reconsider NESHAPs related to chemical manufacturing and commercial sterilizers:
We applaud EPA for taking this critical step to revisit these regulations.
The HON rule, as adopted by the previous Administration, disregards relevant scientific evidence, overlooks significant practical concerns, and exceeds the EPA’s statutory authority. This rulemaking jeopardizes the production of essential chemistries that are crucial for public health and national security and that are used in countless everyday products and critical industries such as agriculture, healthcare, semiconductor manufacturing, and more. Further, the previous Administration’s final rule advanced these requirements on an unworkable timeline, forcing significant capital expenditures for requirements that in some cases are not technically feasible.
“Additionally, the EPA rule concerning ethylene oxide use in commercial sterilizers threatens to severely restrict access to vital medical products nationwide.
“We commend the EPA for their commitment to reevaluating these policies. We look forward to working with EPA throughout this process to develop appropriate, science-based requirements that help protect public health and safety without imposing unnecessary regulatory burdens on domestic manufacturers and undermining American competitiveness.
Good guys winning?
Some encouraging news out of AGAE Technologies. As recently reported in C&E News by the great Craig Bettenhausen: The company has opened a 3,800 m2 plant that can produce more than 1,000 t of rhamnolipids per year. The new plant is in Asia, but the firm is not disclosing more than that, citing concerns about political tension and intellectual property protection [so presumably China]. AGAE is already working on another plant, to be built in the US within the next few years. Getting the desired product out of the fermentation broth efficiently is a crucial challenge in the microbial production of chemicals. “Completing this plant complex was only possible because of the cutting-edge foam control technologies and the data we gathered from years of trial and error at our benchtop bioreactor and fermentation pilot plant,” Garrett Holzwarth, a fermentation scientist at AGAE, says in a press release.
Personnel news: First from Pilot Chemical: Graeme Biggin, formerly of Jacob Stern and P&G (among others) joined the company as VP of Growth and Innovation. That’s great news and I wish him and Pilot well. Second, we learn from Inolex that Art Knox has been promoted to the role of President. Excellent!
More from Future Origins (who BTW will be speaking alongside some special guests at our conference): The company a multi-year purchase agreement with Kao
Corporation of its C12/C14 fatty alcohol, NALO. [so that’s cool] Future Origins has launched its early access program for NALO that provides pre-commercial product samples for testing, with eventual access to commercial volumes from the first manufacturing plant. The agreement with Kao secures offtake for a majority of the planned capacity of Future Origins’ first manufacturing plant. As readers will recall,
Future Origins was founded by industrial biotechnology leader Geno, together with Unilever, Kao, and L'Oréal. I am rooting for the ultimate success of this technology originally developed and almost commercialized by LS-9.
Tremendous news from BioReNuva (the B and R and N are capitalized – don't forget), who (yes, you guessed it) will be onstage at my conference in May: The recently formed venture arm of The Hallstar Company, announced a minority investment in BioReNuva. This is a good step forward for both companies in my view. Best of luck!
I’m fascinated and a little horrified by black soldier flies. But apparently they are all the rage in surfactants these days. Not exactly true but I know Sasol (yep – also at my conference ) is working on them and my well-thumbed copy of Food Navigator magazine had an article entitled “Palm oil replacement: Black soldier fly larvae could be the answer”. Apparently, Black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) offer a sustainable alternative to convert waste products into oils within built up industrial areas. The study profiled explores the potential of BSFL oil to replace palm oil as a representative vegetable oil. You can read the whole thing here, but here’s a few interesting points:
This
A yield comparison between the palm and BSFL was made. Researchers noted that palm can be planted at 150 palms per hectare of plantation, each palm was estimated to yield 12.5 palm fruit bunches per year. The weight of each palm was estimated at 25kg, with an oil concentration of 25%. At these estimates, scientists claimed a productivity of 11.7kg of oil per square metre each year using traditional palm production methods. Cultivating BSF larvae in a tall, urban-style building, can yield a 92kg output per square metre per year. Around 20% of this weight can be purified into oil. “This leads to a yield of BSFL oil at 18.4kg per metre squared per year,” the study showed. However, a vertical farm consisting of 15 separate levels could increase the yield to up to 275.9kg of BSF larvae oil per square metre. “In order to replace the current 16.6m hectares of palm oil plantations it would take 0.7m hectares of ground space to construct into vertical farms,” researchers claimed. [good grief!]. Here's how they envisage it. What do you think?
I’m not sure about this…
The great Womens Wear Daily, which I don't read, has announced the end of an era. After months of speculation, Kim Kardashian and Coty are parting ways. Skims, Kim Kardashian’s shapewear and apparel company, has acquired SKKN by Kim from Kim Kardashian and Coty. Coty acquired 20 percent of KKW Beauty, for $200 million in 2021. Now that stake will belong to Skims, while Kardashian’s 80 percent stake will also be transferred to Skims. Coty plans to use the proceeds to progress deleveraging strategy and invest in wider brand portfolio innovations. Why should you care? You probably shouldn't but I went onto the website and first, determined the products have a lot of ingredients. What do I mean? The best-selling face cream has 68 ingredients! Is that even possible? Surfactants used in various products include sodium cocoyl isethionate, various long chain alcohol ethoxylates, various polysorbates and sorbitan esters and squalene (at number 63 out of 68 on the INCI list). I dunno. Is this just a thinly disguised justification to illustrate the blog once again with its original beauty patroness? Probably.
It’s the 68th ingredient what does it!
More – again – more biosurfactants funding news. This time from Sironix (of course they’ll be speaking at my conference. Need you ask?). These guys are fascinating for many reasons. Anyway the PR says, in part: After securing $3.5M in new funding, Sironix Renewables is rapidly scaling up its manufacturing operations to meet market demand for sustainable, high performance, cost-competitive ingredients in the cleaning products and personal care industries. This latest funding round was led by Arosa Ventures and Oval Park Capital, along with SNØCAP [interesting name], EGB Capital and the University of Minnesota. To date, the company has also received $7M in grants and partnership funding, including from the Indiana Soybean Alliance and the United Soybean Board.
Alright then…
Is it my imagination, or have we been seeing more of these recently? HAPPI reported that Woolite Delicates Detergents were recalled by Reckitt and the Consumer Product Safety Commission due to risk of exposure to bacteria. According to the recall, the products can contain Pseudomonas species bacteria, including Pseudomonas oleovorans. So I couldn't find the exact match but on the CPID here, Woolite Extra Delicates Care detergent has BHT, Benzoisothiazolinone and Methylisothiazolinone in there as preservatives. Should do the trick right? I’m really not a preservatives guy. Someone who knows, please opine. The other main ingredients are Water, Sodium (C10-16) Alkyl Benzenesulfonate, Tea Cocoate, C10-16 Alcohols Ethoxylated, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Sodium Chloride and Fragrance.
Hope we still can
As we went to press [I just wanted to say that], a release by the company NoPalm Ingredients (that’s the actual company name) caught my eye. It says (in part) NoPalm Ingredients has announced a new partnership with global personal care leader Colgate-Palmolive. Together, we’re bringing the next generation of sustainable soap bars to life, incorporating our [yeast based] fermentation oil from upcycled agrifood side streams into Colgate-Palmolive’s product formulations. The partnership follows a successful pilot project launched in 2023 as part of the 100+ Accelerator, a global program that supports startups advancing sustainability. During the pilot, Colgate-Palmolive and NoPalm Ingredients co-developed the first soap bars made with our fermentation-based oil, a high-quality, circular ingredient produced by fermenting upcycled side streams. This oil delivers excellent stability, texture, and fragrance compatibility, along with a significantly lower environmental footprint. [There are a number of folks doing this already, but nothing truly commercial. I wish them success and am keen to learn more].
..until yeast strategy is fully baked. [Note: There was another caption here until our editor vetoed it. Contact me if you must know what it was.]
Market Notes:
In detergent range alcohols : Asia's fatty alcohol market faces continued cost pressures as feedstock PKO prices surge. Mid-cut C12-14 spot offers are up, driven by PKO costs, but deals at the highest offers are unconfirmed. Supply remains limited due to ongoing plant maintenance in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand. Spot activity is expected to slow due to the upcoming Eid ul-Fitr holiday. The US market sees ongoing Q2 contract negotiations with settlements heard flat to up from Q1, influenced by tight availability and weak demand. Rebounding PKO costs are pressuring petrochemical material prices. European spot prices for mid-cut fatty alcohols have risen due to supply limitations and PKO cost pressures. Supply constraints are expected to continue. European mass balance premium spot prices are stable. The EU Deforestation Regulation postponement is noted with revised compliance deadlines.
Asian fatty alcohol ethoxylates market is facing increasing feedstock cost pressures, with fatty alcohol mid-cuts significantly rising since early February. Spot offers for April loading are under cost pressure, while overall demand remains weak. Market sentiment is dampened by ongoing global trade war concerns and geopolitical tensions, impacting consumer confidence and limiting spot interest. Spot trades are sporadic and mostly for small parcels, with discussions focused on term shipments. FAE supply remains constrained due to reduced production at a regional plant because of limited ethylene oxide feedstock. Looking ahead, feedstock fatty alcohol prices are expected to stay high, and weak consumer confidence and macroeconomic headwinds are anticipated to weigh on demand. Spot prices in Southeast Asia and China are mostly unchanged amidst limited discussions. China's domestic spot prices increased due to rising fatty alcohol mid-cut prices, while ethylene oxide prices remain stable.
LAB : The Asian linear alkyl benzene (LAB) market is currently stable, though Chinese suppliers are considering raising prices to align with the broader Asian market. Plant maintenance across China and Asia is limiting supply, but buyers are hesitant. India's market remains supported by consistent demand and relatively tight availability. The downstream LAB sulphonate (LAS) market in Southeast Asia is also stable as the market awaits clearer direction from the LAB sector. Looking ahead, planned maintenance throughout China, Asia, and the Middle East is expected to constrain near-term availability. The upcoming summer manufacturing season is anticipated to boost LAB demand. Market participants are closely monitoring upstream market trends for direction. Benzene prices have been declining for several weeks.
AI Corner:
I’ve started vibe-coding [for fun. Not profit or anything else] per the inspiration of the great Andrej Karpathy in this video.
I’ve shared the video (in the LINK, not the embed) starting at the vibe-coding part. The whole video though (in the EMBED), is well worth listening to as a kind of advanced guide to LLMs for the layman and laywoman. Check it out. Maybe I’ll try to code something surfactant relevant for next month.
Music Section
I’ve no theme for this month so I’ll resort to the lazy man’s music picks. That is – what is on the right hand side of my youtube window when I go there right now and click on the last piece of music in my history. So – what does the algorithm think I should watch next (I’m nervous…)
Aha – OK. The last music video I listened to was the Glorious Om Riff by Steve Hillage. Outstanding kind of 70’s psychedelia. We were in the balcony of City Hall watching this and you could literally hardly see the people sitting downstairs due the cloud cover of marijuana smoke. (that was 19 70 - something)
I’m going down the list, skipping other Steve Hillage music and picking up whatever is by a new artist. How about Stagnancy by Suffocated by Misery? Actually it’s pretty awful - more awful than the title suggests. Listen at your peril.
Ah now this is more like it. BÖC, Cities on Flame – live. We’ve had this on the blog before.
And again – YT knows what I like. The Irons with the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, all 13 minutes of it. I wrote a whole article on this for some newsletter a while back.
Oh – here’s something new (to me). I’m a Freak by Wicked Lady of their album Psychotic Overkill (1972 – how did I miss them?). Heads up if you’re in the office. The album cover on YT may be considered NSFW - or at least may raise an eyebrow as you’re supposed to be working - which you are because this is the surfactants blog! Your boss understands.
And finally – also new to me – Heavy Trippin’ by Nightstalker. It looks like they’re from Greece. Stoner rock, I think is the term. Different from the Hillage kind.