Diversified chemical producers

The annual global consumption of surface active agents or surfactants in 2006 was estimated to reach 13 million metric tons, with the break up of regional sales as depicted in Figure 1.1. There are arguably five major participants in the surfactant supply chain including (1) basic raw-material processors, (2) feedstock and diversified chemical producers, (3) surfactant converters, (4) product formulators, and (5) distributors/retailers, some of which are listed in Figure 1.2. 

DuPont, Pierre Samuel (1870-1954) An American chemist and industrialist who worked for the E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, and becoming its president from 1915 to 1920. He is noted for transforming the American explosives producer into the well-known diversified chemical producer. 

Second, it is also clear that the pressures and opportunities acting on these industries are not exclusively socioeconomic but also fundamentally ecological. Seasonality, inter-annual variability, and insect adaptations over time pose serious and ongoing problems for chemical producers and formulators these problems have led to increased debt, consolidation, and the pressure for markets in diversified environmental contexts. Nor is the lawn unique in this sense. Indeed, its features parallel those of capitalist agriculture more generally. 

Chemical and Engineering News annually publishes a list of the top 75 chemical producers based on the amount of chemical sales, not total sales for the entire company. Table 1.17 lists the top 25 companies. Notice that, although many companies have 100% chemical sales, others are diversified and some, especially the petroleum companies, have a very small percentage of chemical sales vs. total sales. 

Many fine chemicals are not traded, but produced in-house by diversified chemical and life science companies. One must distinguish, therefore, between merchant value and production value of fine chemicals (PCs in the following equation). The former is the product of traded quantities times the unit sales prices the latter, the product of produced quantities times (virtual) unit prices of captively manufactured products. The total value is the sum of both merchant and production values ... 

The reason is clear Japanese firms place high priority on technology as a competitive weapon and see superconductivity as a major new opportunity that could set the pattern of international competition for the twenty-first century. Consequently, they have made huge commitments of scientists and funds to pursue both basic research and applications research in tandem. Japanese companies employ more chemists and engineers for superconductor work (and fewer physicists) than do the Americans, and a far wider range of companies are involved—steel and glass-makers, for example, who see their industries declining and want to diversify, as well as chemical producers and electronics manufacturers. Said the OTA report ... 

Four of these dozen companies—the forerunners of Exxon (Jersey Standard) and Chevron (Standard of California or Socal) and Shell and Phillips— began to lay the foundation of the petrochemical industry before the outbreak of World War II. These long-established petrochemical companies were very much pioneers among their competitors. As Williams Haynes, the chemical industry s historian, observed in the early 1940s, Production of chemicals by the petroleum industry appeared to be economically and technically sound, but most petroleum executives could not see what appeared to them to be a tiny market for a multitude of chemicals produced by a complexity of operations and sold to a long and diversified list of customers, tasks for which they had neither the technical nor the sales staff. ... 

The companies in this list include a varied group. Only about 36% are classified as basic chemical makers. Sixteen percent are classified as petroleum companies. Diversified companies represent 17% of the list, and the remaining 31% are scattered among specialty chemicals agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, and life sciences companies. For 30% of the top chemical producers, chemicals make up less than 50% of the sales. 

The Netherlands and Belgium. The Netherlands is an important contributor to the European chemical industry. In part, this is due to excellent port facilities and the ability to handle lai-ge amounts of chemical imports and exports. The chemical industry of this nation is characterized by strong joint ventures with other European nations, for example, Akzo Nobel (Sweden) and its affiliate Shell (United Kingdom). Akzo is the largest chemical producer, with 1996 sales exceeding 13 billion, primarily from synthetic fibers. It is a highly diversified company, however. Five new projects were in construction in early 1999 [13]. 

The reaction of ethylene with hydrogen chloride, on the other hand, produces ethyl chloride. This compound is a small-volume chemical with diversified uses (alkylating agent, refrigerant, solvent). 

U.S. Over 55,000 chemicals are commercially produced, but only 10% of these account for over 99.9% of production and are made in excess of 1 million Ib/yr in the U.S. The top chemical companies have a small percentage of sales compared to other industries like automobiles, airplanes, tires, and glass, where 80-99% of sales are taken by the top eight companies or less. Diversity of products in companies has increased in the last few years. Before 1940 chemical companies sold nothing but chemicals. Although some are primarily chemical, others have diversified so that it is possible to have chemicals account for a smaller percentage of the company s sales. Corporations such as the petroleum companies have chemical sales with a very low percentage of total sales. 

The limited number of reliable RMs that can be prepared and made available leads to the use of possibly inappropriate RMs. When the matrix in a sample differs from that of the RM, reliable comparison may be very difficult. A provision for the support of critically important and accurate bench level measurements is needed. In such situations there is a better alternative from the bench level a specimen with typical matrix properties is sent to a laboratory having competence appropriate for providing a reference measurement. That value is communicated back to the bench where it provides a certified value - a kind of in-house RM -for comparison with routine sample measurements. Thus, the concept of reference measurement emerges as being equally as important as that of the RM. Chemical science has no other choice, since the combined output of RM-producing institutions could not possibly accommodate all the rapidly diversifying demands for all measurands in all matrices of interest. 

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