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Issue 17 - February 2010
The DINP Update
The scarcity of isononanol (INA) is looking more and more like a structural problem that will not go away in a few months. It is due to the huge difference in price between natural gas and petroleum with natural gas discoveries keeping gas price down, and new Chinese drivers demanding more gasoline and keeping petroleum price up. As a consequence of the price disparity, ethylene producers are cracking all the ethane they can, and cracking the least naphtha they can. The result of this is that there is plenty of ethylene but not enough propylene and even less butenes. Propylene supply is improving thanks to additional propane cracking (tied to natural gas price) but butenes continue to be tight, and they are the feedstock for INA and isodecanol (IDA) for DINP and DIDP. One alternative for DINP users that do not have a DINP allocation is to dust off an old DOP-containing recipe. ChemCeed has DOP available and probably at a price lower than that of DINP. Please call your ChemCeed representative for further information or to obtain a quote.
Freight Costs Projected to see a Continuous Increase
By now I am sure everyone has heard the rumors about fuel prices rising significantly over 2011. Some say that we could see prices as high as $5.00/gallon before 2011 is over. As a shipper and customer this affects us directly and could be a huge financial burden. It is projected that in the second quarter alone one can see freight charges increase as much as 4%. From my understanding economically “we are on the road to recovery,” so why the increases? One of the hottest topics is China’s diesel shortage. This will cause an increase in demand for diesel imports over the course of 2011 as well. In addition, we will be seeing tighter trucking capacity as early as the second quarter. This is due to changes in the current hours-of service, the new Comprehensive Safety Analysis, and the crackdown of illegal aliens. The trucking industry could see a loss of almost 300,000 drivers by the end of 2012. Rates will rise as capacity tightens.
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In 2010, computer servers were responsible for 2.5% of energy consumption in the United States. A further 2.5% of United States energy consumption was used by cooling systems required to cool the servers. It was estimated in 2010, that if trends continued, by 2020, servers would use more of the world's energy than air travel.
