Interview with Dirk Verstraeten

provide help and advice on how better to take advantage of the opportunities available.

EPCA began working with Vlerick Business School (VBS) in 2017, initially to benchmark the progress with digitisation; that collaborative journey has continued, and continues to do so. Since 2019, work has also been looking at how digitisation can help the push for sustainability. “We want to talk this year about how that can help the supply chain be more sustainable and provide for the circular economy,” Ciuciu says. “We need to understand what is going on in that area.”

Things are moving quickly, as Ciuciu adds: “Industry now has a level of maturity in digitisation that wasn’t there five years ago.” One important element is the move from linear processes to the engineering of dynamic integrated systems. “EPCA can connect all the different players and enable real collaboration to find better ecosystems and platforms,” she explains.

Proving Ciuciu’s point about being a year-long source of guidance and information, EPCA has this year already held a working session in June to promote the active sharing of ideas on CO2 reduction across the petrochemical industry and its supply chain, seeking to identify measures by which industry as a whole can address the challenges. What is feasible, and will it be meaningful for the whole industry? The outcomes of this discussion will be shared during the Annual Meeting.

A second workshop was held in September on eco-efficiency and circularity, again feeding into discussions during the Annual Meeting; VBS’s Ann Vereecke and Covestro’s Dirk Verstraeten, chair of EPCA’s Supply Chain Programme Committee (SCPC), will offer insights and seek feedback from attendees, after which SCPC and the EPCA board of directors will look at how members’ opinions can inform work over the coming year.

EPCA is also updating the study on gender diversity carried out by McKinsey in 2015; “This is now being revisited,” Ciuciu says. “We want to see what has evolved and what still needs to be done.” This initiative is being driven by Gina Fyffe, CEO of Integra Petrochemicals, who recently took on the chair of EPCA’s Talents of Today, Leaders of Tomorrow group created in early 2020 after merging the former YETT and TDIC to increase synergy and impact. The main findings of this new study will also be shared during the Annual Meeting.

It certainly seems that EPCA has thought long and hard about the content and format of this year’s second virtual Annual Meeting. “This is the richest programme in the history of EPCA,” Ciuciu says, praising the great work of the EPCA team.

One important aspect of the Annual Meeting in the past has been the days of networking opportunities that it offers and EPCA has tried to mirror that in this year’s virtual session, with virtual happy hours at the end of each day.

As Ciuciu concludes, this is the “time to regroup, reflect with positivity and optimism” and to prepare the industry for the great transformation it will face in the post-pandemic world.

CONNECTING THE DOTS

THE PETROCHEMICAL SUPPLY CHAIN HAS A CRUCIAL POSITION IN THE SEARCH FOR SUSTAINABILITY IN THE SECTOR; DIRK VERSTRAETEN, CHAIR OF EPCA’S SUPPLY CHAIN PROGRAMME COMMITTEE, EXPLAINS THE ISSUES

As he nears the end of his three-year term as chair of the European Petrochemical Association’s (EPCA) Supply Chain Programme Committee (SCPC), Dirk Verstraeten, senior expert logistics at Covestro Deutschland, can reflect on a hectic period during which EPCA strove to help its members navigate the rapidly changing business landscape.

That effort has involved three inter-connected strands. Firstly, the increasing availability and adoption of digital processes has helped propel the industry towards a fully integrated world. “Digitisation has arrived as part of the corporate strategy,” Verstraeten says, although there is more work to be done. Standardisation and the availability of neutral platforms still have gaps, which hamper the delivery of the full potential of digitised systems.

The second strand is sustainability, an area where, Verstraeten says, “there are amazing things going on”, pointing to the example of one of the leading ocean carriers’ recent order for methanol-fuelled containerships. There is a lot of funding available, too, as governments and regional authorities have pledged to deliver on promises of decarbonisation and the coming energy transition, hence the growing interest in hydrogen as a fuel and power source. “Everybody’s talking about it,” Verstraeten says, “and a lot are doing something."

The final strand is the circular economy and the need to transform industrial operations for the next generation. This is where the supply chain will play a pivotal role, as goods (particularly plastics) will have to be collected and returned after use, for conversion into other goods.

Refi ners are already adapting in response to the challenge, Verstraeten says, and terminals are re-tooling to be able to handle the growing volume of bio-based material fl owing through their tanks. Petrochemical and chemical producers will also need to reposition themselves and the supply chain will have to be ready to deal with new products and changing fl ows of material. While this seems like a quantum leap in the industrial process, it will be delivered through a series of smaller, individual initiatives combined with eff orts to bring all value providers closer together, Verstraeten thinks.

COLLABORATION NEEDED During the course of 2021, EPCA has sought to help its members to position themselves appropriately to meet these challenges, organising two workshops for the exchange of information, with a particular emphasis on bringing in expertise from outside the immediate petrochemical sector. The fi rst of these, which was held this past June, looked at sustainability and eco-effi ciency and highlighted the need for

Pic - Michael Rennertz

trust and verifi able information, which will have to lean on the expertise of IT specialists.

The second workshop looked at the circular economy. EPCA’s project manager Gerardo Ambrosecchia notes that this event had participation from downstream users, waste treatment companies (including those involved in the waste-to-energy area), and chemical