Surfactants Monthly - November 2023
Surfactants Monthly – November 2023
We’re doing the music first this month, because it’s top of mind. You can skip straight to the news if you like. Up to you.
First music item: We rarely, if ever, do the family boasting thing here, but we will now. A certain James Burns released his most recent collaboration with Life of Thom and the rap album quickly attracted some pretty serious critical acclaim with airtime on Shade 45 ahead of a record launch party in New York. He found the spotlight exhausting apparently with seemingly everyone wanting to say something to him and expecting him to say something back. I get it. The price of fame. Just like that in the surfactants world. If you’re interested in the music, you can google it pretty easily. I’ll not link to it here in order to preserve the blog’s G-Rating. It’s super-hardcore rap. Mega-kudos Jamesy!
Second music: What did you guys think of your Spotify 2023 wraps? Keen to see and share in next month’s blog if you’re up for it. Apparently a majority of people were a bit embarrassed by what they listen to and will not share. Not so, here on the blog. Here’s my top 5 artists and top 5 songs of ’23.
Artists:
1. Blue Öyster Cult
2. Thin Lizzy
3. Deep Purple
4. Rainbow
5. Robin Trower
Songs:
1. Cities on Flame with Rock ‘n Roll – Blue Öyster Cult
2. Bad Reputation – Thin Lizzy
3. The Wizard – Black Sabbath
4. Heart full of Soul – The Yardbirds
5. Don’t Believe a Word – Thin Lizzy
So – yeah, I’m stuck in my mid to late teens. And I was not then, and have not been since, hip, by any definition. What about Rush? I hear you ask. Different medium. That soundtrack plays mostly in my head and less so on Spotify. Do you have any artist like that? Hey – send me your wraps and comments, for attribution or not, and we’ll do a special on them in the New Year!
Number 1 in ‘2023 (and some decades earlier)
Go on - give it a listen - a muscular live version.
The News: Actually before we start the news, I want to get something out there, that I’ve thinking about and just kinda want to take the temperature of readers. I’m thinking about monetizing the blog. So, what does that mean? So far, it means either a subscription charge for every reader or maybe have it sponsor supported (i.e. selling sponsorships in or around the blog). I’d be interested in your thoughts and comments. Would you be up for paying, say, I dunno, $25 a month for the blog? Or would you be OK with “This blog brought to you by BigSurfco and SuperTechco.” – embedded in there. What are your thoughts? Oh and why am I thinking about this? I’d like to license and purchase additional data and content to include in the blog. I’d like to build an app and other UI type things and launch a new product line around human potential and such. All this costs money and yes, when we get to generating a cash surplus, I’ll keep it, most of it, and it can be considered profit for value provided. Anyway, not sure all that convoluted explanation was necessary, but please do give me your gut feedback on this. Subscription? Sponsorship? Or both? What would you do? What do you think I should do? (And I realize that, as humans, those may be 2 different things. ).
OK – Now the News:
As in prior months, we pull information and insight here from a variety of sources, including our business partners and friends at ICIS. Now with a cool re-brand or new-sub-brand – ICIS.Clarity. And you know our gentle exhortation here. I subscribe and you should too.
Markets:
The markets according to Dall-E
LAB and LAS:
It’s hard to get market information on these two pillars of the surfactants market in North America or Europe but the Asian market affords some transparency for us. LAB prices in Asia for November were in the range of $1,440 to $1,440, off by a modest 1.3 – 1.4% since last month. The balance of the LAS market approaches long as China demand remains steady but elsewhere the slow winter season kicks in. Notwithstanding the LAB direction, LAS prices in the region are nudging up by 1.5 – 1.7% into the $1,270 - $1,370 range vs a month ago , in an attempt by producers to improve threadbare margins.
As always, we encourage our readers to keep an eye on the crude and jet kero markets, here as reported by the US Energy Information Administration.
Ethylene, EO and Ethoxylates:
In the US, pipeline ethylene prices were off by about a cent from 4 weeks ago at 19 – 20 c/lb, following crude and ethane down over the month.
US Ethylene oxide remains a bit tight due to continuing outages, including Dow Plaquemine, but pricing has eased down this month in light of continuing weak demand. ICIS predicts a shade under 60 cents / lb ($1,320 / MT) for December contracts.
European Ethylene oxide remains higher priced than the US, despite a drop for December. The range for Northwest Europe is Euros1,400 to 1,540 per MT. This follows the European ethylene decrease of about Euros 30 per MT over the month and continued weak demand. On the supply side, BASF’s EO/ethylene glycol (EG) turnaround in Antwerp is done. According to ICIS reporting, EO production at BASF's Ludwigshafen site has re-started after a technical failure in November. In connection, BASF declared force majeure on the supply of alkoxylated surfactants in Ludwigshafen, Germany, on 10 November, according to a letter seen doing the rounds.
Meanwhile in the Asian Ethoxylates market, demand is tending to weak – much like in the LAB supply chain. Suppliers stocks also remain a bit high and so some lower priced deals are to be had as the year end approaches. Drummed 1214FAE 7-9 CIF SEA is averaging around $1,400 / MT about $40 off a month ago. At these levels, margins are squeezed as lauryl alcohol pricing, as we see below, has trended clearly up over the last 4 weeks.
Detergent Range Alcohols:
These may get tiresome pretty quickly. Please do let me know.l
I hope this header is clear. We’re talking here about alcohol’s in the carbon chain length range 12 – 18, regardless of provenance – means they can be petrochemical, oleochemical or other (coal mainly).
So Asian Fatty Alcohols are behaving a bit differently to other intermediates in the region as buyers seem keen to get contracts in place before the years end, for delivery in the New Year – including before the Chinese New Year. This has led to an increase in prices, over the last month, almost across the board. ICIS reports midpoints of some key ranges as follows, FOB Southeast Asia.
Alcohol End Nov (USD/MT) 4 Weeks Ago (USD/MT
12-14 1,350 1,275
16 1,465 1,450
18 1,200 1,145
All this on the back of PKO down by about $20/MT on the week to $853/ MT SEA as of 11/28. A rare bright moment for oleo-alcohol producers in the US.
In US Detergent range alcohol market, decent supply and weak demand make for a mixed market. 1215 is reported at a mid-point of $1,800 / MT (82 c/lb), even on the month and up by about $100/MT since September. 1618 is headed in the other direction at a midpoint of $2,480 / MT or $1.125 / lb, even on the month and down about $275 since September.
In Europe, the 1214 market remains tight as the Wilmar force majeure continues. Midpoint pricing is Euros 1,510 per MT, even on the month and up by Euros 100 since September.
Other News:
Anyone who’s spent time in green chemistry will know the keen interest in finding more renewable alternatives to acrylates in both personal care and household applications. While not a surfactant per se, BASF’s new polysaccharide based acrylate alternative sold as a laundry anti-redeposition additive, is certainly relevant to the field. BVERDE GP 790 L (not the greatest name, although I guess I understand its derivation) is:
A modified polysaccharide that provides the performance of acrylate chemistry without sacrificing on sustainability
Readily biodegradable*, with 79% biobased content
Compared with acrylic-based chemistry, better compatibility with standard detergent formulations, yielding a clear and homogenous product
BTW - * Readily biodegradable means ≥ 60% degradation within 28 days, as measured by OECD 301F method.
On the AI beat: here’s an interesting article in GreenBiz magazine, headlined “How Unilever uses AI to cut petrochemicals out of laundry soap”. It’s about Unilever’s multiyear partnership with Arzeda, a Seattle-based company using computational protein design and machine learning to identify renewable and biodegradable proteins. "It is believed that only 5 percent of the enzymes that occur naturally have been identified and fully understood," said Neil Parry, head of biotech for Unilever, in July 2021 when the company’s Arzeda relationship was announced. So far, the two companies have identified enzymes that can eliminate stains while reducing the amount of energy and water used by cleaning products and potentially cutting the number of ingredients needed for certain products in half. They did this in just 18 months, five times faster than traditionally possible, Parry said this summer. Arzeda, which raised a $33 million Series B round of venture funding in March 2022, has been a recent speaker at my surfactant conferences. Very cool stuff.
AI and Detergent..
In the field of human potential, I’ve recently come across the prolific output of Adam Grant, a professor at the Wharton School. Here’s an interesting paper entitled: “Bored by Interest: Intrinsic Motivation in One Task Can Reduce Performance on Other Tasks” and the title says it all (Link here). So, if you are intrinsically really into doing something – you’ll probably excel at it – and keep doing it. Like me in writing this blog and you in reading it. But this then has a knock-on effect of decreasing your performance on other things that you are just not that into. For me – it’s opening up my calendar and scheduling a meeting. For some reason, I’d rather the other party do it – anyone but me. And if I’ve been spending the morning writing, the blog or fiction or whatever, then forget trying to schedule a meeting with me. I’m feeling good – great in fact, but I have no interest in my calendar. I’ll do it tomorrow. Maybe. Grant explains it like this:
While existing research has demonstrated that intrinsic motivation can increase task performance, jobs are composed of multiple tasks, and it remains to be seen how intrinsic motivation in one task affects performance on other tasks. Drawing on theories of psychological contrast, we hypothesize that high intrinsic motivation in one task reduces performance on less intrinsically motivating tasks. In a field study at a Korean department store, employees with the highest maximum intrinsic motivation in one task had lower average and minimum performance across their other tasks as well as more performance variance across their tasks. In a laboratory experiment in the United States, working on a highly intrinsically motivating initial task led participants to perform worse in a subsequent task if it was uninteresting, but not if it was interesting. This effect was mediated by boredom, but not by a range of other psychological processes. Across both studies, moderate intrinsic motivation in one task was associated with better performance in less interesting tasks than high intrinsic motivation, revealing a curvilinear cross-task effect of intrinsic motivation. Our research advances knowledge about the dark side of intrinsic motivation, the design of work, and the drivers of task performance.
And he posits a possible solution as follows: Although our research suggests that high intrinsic motivation in one task can reduce performance in less interesting tasks, we are not suggesting that managers or employees should work to limit intrinsic motivation. Indeed, low levels of intrinsic motivation had negative consequences for that task as well as for other tasks. Rather, our studies underscore the value in staying mindful of the side effects of high intrinsic motivation and the order in which tasks are completed. For managers, this means recognizing that when employees are intensely interested in a task, they are at risk for underperforming less exciting tasks. For employees themselves, such an awareness can help them manage their time, effort, and energy so they do not neglect tasks that are important but not interesting. In sports, tapering is the practice of reducing exercise to achieve peak strength or endurance before an important competition. In the week leading up to a major event, swimmers and runners gradually decrease their workouts. Our studies raise the possibility that at work, a
similar practice of task tapering may be relevant. In days or weeks where both fascinating and tedious tasks need to be done, if performance is paramount in both, there may be value in scheduling a moderately enjoyable task in between them. By tapering interest levels down gradually, it may be possible to sustain energy and effectiveness even in tasks that lack intrinsic motivation.
Intrinsically motivated? But at what cost?
And finally – save the dates for your calendar: May 9th and 10th (8th for the one day course) for the 14th Annual World Surfactants Conference. Lots of new stuff in AI, human potential, focus, awareness and insights and information that you just can’t get anywhere else.
And finally finally – more music. I mean I have to round out the top 5 with more Youtube videos right. BTW see last months blog for instructions on avoiding Youtube ads. And yes, I’m aware of the rich irony of advising how to avoid ads in the same post that proposed running sponsorship ads on the blog. Well it’s different when I do it. They won’t be annoying and intrusive. They’ll be informative cool – or dropped as sponsors.
Bad Reputation – Live in Sydney. Hey - you think that drummer’s intrinsically motivated?
The Wizard – of which it has been said – that – boys and girls - is a guitar break.
The oldest song of the bunch – Jeff Beck plays guitar on this one.
Here’s a beautifully laid back version (until 3:00) of Don’t Believe a Word from the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1979. Wow right?
That’s it. Save the date – May 9 – 10th