For additional information please contact:

Bob Burdett
Corporate Communications Manager
Nexant, Inc.

+1 415 369 1114
bburdett@nexant.com


   

Nexant's Annual Chem Systems Seminar Focuses on European Chemical Recovery

Event Attracts P&C Industry Experts in Finance, Technology, and Commercial Development

London---20 January 2003---Nexant's annual two-day European Chem Systems seminar for the petroleum, chemical, and petrochemical industry is scheduled for the 12th and 13th of February, at the Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington, London, U.K. This year's event focuses on "Positioning for Improvement: Exploiting Uncertainty."

The European chemical industry should be entering a period of recovery, having withstood the slowdown in Asia in the late 1990s, high oil prices in 2001, and lower economic growth in early 2002. Though a number of external factors continue to impact recovery, companies need to position themselves for improvement by capturing opportunities in emerging and higher growth markets, exploiting new technologies and feedstock sources, continuing to reshape business portfolios, and reassessing the key areas of olefins and feedstocks.

To assess these opportunities, Nexant has assembled a distinguished group of experts from its own ranks and from leading operating companies, the financial community, technology providers and emerging market business leaders. Seminar presentations will cover the full spectrum of topics, from upstream oil and gas to downstream refining and chemicals, to provide an integrated perspective of the major drivers and issues facing Europe's petroleum and chemical industries.

James Briggs, Managing Director of Nexant Limited and Senior Vice President and Director of Petroleum and Chemicals, will formally open the proceedings. Mohammad Al-Degaithar, General Manager of SABIC Global, will deliver the opening day keynote address.

Nexant's Richard Sleep will discuss global chemicals and colleague Rizwan Sheikh will assess the impact of Middle East petrochemicals on the European market. A session on investments in the chemical sector has been added to this year's event, featuring Advent International's Ron Sheldon on exploiting equity opportunities, an economic overview from Deutsche Bank and Nexant's Dr. Salim Jabbour and Anne Chapman on searching for value by managing risk. A petrochemicals session will include presentations on aromatics from Nexant's European PERP (Process Evaluation Research Planning) director Dr. Mark Morgan, the outlook for vinyls, by Nexant's Glyn Johnson and the future of the merchant olefins market in Europe by Nexant's Alastair Hensman. The first day concludes with a technology session that includes papers on the developments in modern catalysis by Dr. David Prest of Synetix and the status of gas-to-liquids (GTL) technology by SASOL.

Day 2 of the seminar spotlights gas and feedstocks and chemicals and polymers, with Lukoil's Slava Sokolsky discussing opportunities in Russia and the CIS, Nexant's Graham Hartnell presenting on the gas value chain and evolving gas markets and Nexant's Suzanne Urquhart examining the outlook for feedstocks. Steven Kantorowicz of ABB Lummus begins the final chemicals and polymer session with an overview of methane refining technology, followed by Nexant's Roger Green on the technoeconomic and structural dynamics of polyolefins and colleague Stewart Hardy on extracting value in the polyester chain. John King of Nexant Thailand will round off the programme with his paper on 'Asia-the Petrochemical Dynamo.'

For additional information on the 2003 Nexant Chem Systems European seminar, please visit www.nexant.com or contact Jennifer Kilbane at +44 20 7950 1512 (jkilbane@nexant.com).

About Nexant

Nexant’s products and services help clients solve critical strategic and operational challenges in several key areas: petroleum and chemicals; retail and wholesale power markets; energy trading; enterprise risk management and decision support; energy delivery and management; and advanced energy technology. Nexant's acquired Chem Systems in 2001 and has successfully integrated its petrochemical and chemical industry offerings to form a global petroleum and chemicals (P&C) division, with a depth of resources in Europe and the Americas, and plans to grow significantly in Asia. Nexant’s P&C division now offers the most fully integrated range of consulting services of any consulting firm—from the wellhead to speciality chemicals.

Having transformed itself into one of the largest industry-focused energy and chemical consulting firms, Nexant has redefined the consulting services business model, combining industry expertise and analytical skills with a new range of customer-focused technology solutions, as represented by its ChemSystems Online (http://www.chemsystemsonline.com) platform of web-based software applications and analytical tools launched last year.

Nexant Limited, the U.K. subsidiary of Nexant, Inc., is located in London. Nexant, Inc. is headquartered in San Francisco, California, with additional offices in Bangkok, Thailand; Tokyo, Japan; White Plains, New York; Washington, D.C.; Houston, Texas; Long Beach, California; Boulder, Colorado; Phoenix, Arizona; and Madison, Wisconsin. The company is owned by a select group of investors and Nexant management and employees.

 

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