TANKS & LOGISTICS 07
STEER THIS SHIP CONFERENCE REPORT • EPCA’S VIRTUAL ANNUAL MEETING LACKED THE USUAL NETWORKING BUT DELIVERED PRESENTATIONS OF THE HIGHEST QUALITY AND SIGNIFICANCE FOR DECADES NOW, the petrochemical industry has been bent on growth, expanding its market around the globe and into new end-user sectors. In the past couple of decades, that growth has had to be tinged with increasing expectations of environmental care and, more recently, with new targets for sustainability, decarbonisation and a move towards a circular rather than linear economy. Over that period, operators in Europe – and beyond – have been able to lean on the experience and learning opportunities provided
has always offered the latest thinking in the trends that are affecting petrochemical producers as well as a gathering point where senior executives can give their thoughts and where their teams can get on with the business of doing business. EPCA’s 54th Annual Meeting, scheduled to take place in Budapest at the start of October, was, though, a casualty of this year’s black swan event: the spreading Covid-19 pandemic. EPCA made an early decision not to hold the Annual Meeting in person, which was
by the European Petrochemical Association (EPCA), whose Annual Meeting in particular
bad news for hoteliers and restauranteurs in Budapest as well as for the thousands who were looking forward to turning up and meeting their colleagues, suppliers and customers. But, having taken on board discussions at recent Annual Meetings about the potential for digital techniques to provide
EUROPE’S PETROCHEMICAL INDUSTRY COULD NOT MEET IN PERSON BUT GATHERED ONLINE
help in maintaining operations, EPCA followed other event organisers in taking this year’s Annual Meeting online. EPCA’s Community app has been developed to keep its members in touch with one another and with the broader industry and so the ‘virtual’ Annual Meeting this year focused on presentations that would normally form the business sessions during the actual event. Those were as thought-provoking as ever and the IT held up pretty well to enable discussion and debate, while also giving the audience the chance to question the presenters and get immediate answers. In addition, and again in common with other recent events that have been forced into cyberspace, the presentations are available on the EPCA website for those members who have registered. STEP OUT OF THE CRISIS It cannot be said that this year’s EPCA Annual Meeting was the same as those that have gone before but then nothing is the same in this most unusual of years. But, as EPCA CEO Caroline Ciuciu said during her introduction to the first of three days of online presentations, EPCA has been the primary business network in Europe for the petrochemical industry worldwide for more than 50 years and is not
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