For all the operational advances chemical logistics achieved in the past few years, and for all the savings producers and shippers have realized, large opportunities for gaining efficiency and saving money remain. The most important advance would be for logistics to be included in the strategic planning stages with an equal seat at the table with production and sales.

Within days of the late-January deadline for chemical producers and distributors to file their "top screen" hazard-assessment questionnaire to the Department of Homeland Security, a Congressional subcommittee approved legislation to further tighten handling, transportation, and reporting rules for hazardous materials. Chemical producers, distributors, and carriers responded with a quick and loud call for legislators to wait for current rules to work before changing them.

Global chemical distributor Brenntag is not just California dreaming. It recently acquired West Coast specialty chemicals distributor Schoofs, Inc. based in Moraga, CA, and named Steven M. Pozzi as president of Brenntag Pacific, based in Santa Fe Springs, CA. No price was disclosed for the acquisition.

As totes and intermediate bulk containers (IBCs) become more sophisticated and more expensive, chemical producers and distributors view them more as a fleet ­ such as rail cars or tank trailers ­ rather than as a disposable cost of doing business. Strict new rules on tracking and tracing hazardous materials also make it imperative for shippers to know where their containers are.

Elemica, the virtual supply chain management network for chemicals, reports $50 billion worth of transactions for the fiscal year just ended and will hold its first Supply Chain Collaboration Conference at Ashland Inc. facilities in Dublin, Ohio.

Univar Canada, based in Vancouver, has signed an agreement to purchase Dow Canada's western Canada caustic soda distribution assets. Those include all related supply and sales contracts, as well as storage and transportation assets and a proprietary fleet of 374 railcars.

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