2019 oil, gas, and chemicals industry outlook

Article | March 4, 2020

Atoms are gregarious by nature, escaping a solitary existence by forming chemical bonds with their neighbors. Chemical reactivity, in turn, depends on the degree of atomic “isolation”; a lonely atom will more readily interact and form bonds with others, as compared to its more “coordinated” counterparts that are chemically engaged with other atoms. This coordination concept plays a central role in our understanding of chemical and catalytic activity. What has been lacking to date, however, is a direct and quantitative measurement of the variation in chemical reactivity of atoms having different degrees of coordination.

Article | June 3, 2021

ONE OF THE GREATEST achievements of the last 30 years has been the fall in the number of people living in extreme poverty.In 1999, 1.9bn of the world’s population were living on less than $1.90, the Word Bank’s definition of extreme poverty. Despite setbacks caused by the pandemic, this had fallen to 698m by October 2020. Income levels alone are not enough to escape the life-threatening agony of extreme poverty. There is no point in having money if the essential goods and services to spend your money on are not available. Critical to poverty alleviation has been sufficient supply of all the things that people in the rich world take for granted. The raw materials to make the vast majority of manufactured goods include petrochemicals and polymers. Nearly all the major manufacturing chains would not have been able to function without petrochemicals. Think of medical equipment, syringes, blood bags, hospital gowns, face masks, pill bottles and medicine blister packs. None of the above could have been produced without petrochemicals. As people emerged out of extreme poverty and as economies became wealthier, modern-day medical services became more widely available.

Article | March 30, 2020

The chemical industry is no stranger to disruption, from SARS to trade policy conflict and the financial crisis. Yet COVID-19 is unprecedented in its impact, creating a universal imperative for governments and businesses to take immediate action to protect their people. Unlike many other sectors, the chemical industry is not in a position to stop production and send workers home. Instead, it needs to strike the right balance between “social distancing” and keeping plants running to provide the basic necessities for society, as well as the antiseptics, disinfectants, protective packaging and more needed to fight the pandemic.

Article | February 27, 2020

The world of Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) IT systems is a vast one. Therefore, it cannot be stressed enough that organizations need to be nimble and armed with easy-to-deploy, interoperable, portable systems. Most mature organizations opt for a risk-based EHS management system framework designed to meet a continually evolving and dynamic business and operating model. A risk-based approach offers flexibility, within defined boundaries, for alternate solutions to risk management needs. Standard frameworks recommend mandatory controls when there is potential for high-consequence events. Moreover, risk control measures which have been proven effective and considered technically superior are increasingly used.