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Every chemicals trader and businessman knows the truth behind the saying, “Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it.”

It was true back in 100 A.D., when the Roman author, Publilius Syrus first wrote it, and it was true long before Adam Smith taught the world Supply vs Demand.

The problem for chemicals traders is finding out what at what price a purchaser has bought. So much of the chemicals industry is governed by long-term deals and relationships; where contracts are signed behind closed doors. Prices between two parties can only be estimated by those outside of the deal.

We can assume therefore, that when Syrus and Smith were writing they were not considering the spot price of 20mt of glycine in a warehouse in Mumbai.

Fortunately, today’s global, internet connected, 24/7 chemicals trading network offers us greater information than either of those two wise gentlemen can ever have imagined possible. With a move of a mouse and a right-click click, commodity prices can easily be tracked on Bloomberg or CNBC. Australian based IG, even offer an online trading platform. Other websites offer a range of chemical products or a more localised service, such as NCDEX for Indian agriculture.

Yet many of these sites hold prices only for ‘paper’ products: speculations on how future commodity prices will rise or fall. For trading in real world chemical products, prices can be found on Alibaba, but this still requires an application for a quote.

A truly electronic trading hub like that at Spotchemi (who host this blog) offers at a glance chemical prices for products being offered for sale, as well as prices from those wanting to buy.

But of course, these prices are only offers to buy or sell. They may be some way off from the true trading price. So this website also shows the actual price and location of recent trades, so that you are able to know what a product is worth, by the amount that a purchaser paid for it.

So how much is any chemical product worth? The price is online, if you know where to look.

In the news for the chemical industry not too long ago was the fact that the Society for Plastics Engineers has undertaken a cooperation with SpecialChem that will allow “SPE members full access to SpecialChem’s Universal Selector database of plastics and additives.”

Those of us who are not plastic or chemical engineers can only imagine the help that access to this resource will provide, for there is certainly a wealth of information in the more than 125,000 chemical datasheets, which will save many man-hours of research time.

As Christophe Cabarry, founder and CEO at SpecialChem said, “This strategic partnership with SPE is completely aligned with our corporate mission to help engineers faster select the products they need by giving them access to all products in the world and the knowledge to select them.”

In a world where information is power, large, well-organised databases can provide a competitive advantage. In the world of the chemical trader a database of chemical businesses is vital.  Knowing who wants what leads to profit, and having an industry database (a Who’s Who for business) is so valuable that today a number of companies now provide access to such information.

A company like LexisNexis, which has a huge database of markets, company profiles and even executive directorships. For a fee, access to these resources can help businesses make the necessary contacts for the next big chemical trade.

Meanwhile, the company Ragic enables its members to personalise their own databases, with customised features that allow you to dictate how you access data. A simplified interface, they claim, will speed up the process.

For chemical suppliers, manufacturers and producers who do not have the time to create a database, the company Spotchemi (who host this website) will allow access to theirs. It contains more than 211,000 companies who buy and sell chemical products. The database is structured in a way that allows companies to focus their efforts on a market, region, product user or supplier, thus saving sales time and money.

Databases like these can provide businesses with real market insight, for there are many ways that data can be analysed; for sales forecasting or product trends, competitor studies or basket analysis. You can check out some approaches to data on the kissmetrics blog here. Meanwhile the Database Marketing Institute provides a full list of uses here.

Whatever you think about databases, most chemical businesses cannot afford to ignore information. The Society for Plastics Engineers recognizes the power of a good database. The question is, do you?

Many years from now, we may look back and laugh at how we transported ourselves from A to B in our fossil fuelled vehicles. We may also look back to a day in 2016, when fossil fuel use ended its monopoly. For on March 11^th 2016, “United Airlines made history by becoming the first U.S. airline to begin use of commercial-scale volumes of sustainable aviation biofuel for regularly scheduled flights with the departure of United Flight 708 from Los Angeles International Airport.”

The United Airlines press release continues its proud declaration, stating that, “United has agreed to purchase up to 15 million gallons of sustainable biofuel from AltAir Paramount over a three-year period. The airline has begun using the biofuel in its daily operations at LAX, storing and delivering it in the same way as traditional fuel.”

Whilst for now the arrangement has only, “…dedicated use of AltAir Paramount renewable fuel for two weeks…” The news is certainly groundbreaking and may be the start of the long awaited ‘biofuel revolution’.

Alongside the biofuel flight, United Airlines has also invested $30 million in Fulcrum Bioenergy Inc. and, according to manufacturing.net, it hopes it will, “begin receiving fuel from Fulcrum BioEnergy Inc. in 2018 and could be taking 90 million gallons a year by 2021.”

Others are more sceptical of the impact of the Airlines’ biofueled flights, and highlight the fact that, “That’s enough fuel for 20,000 flights a year but just a drop in United’s fuel bucket. The nation’s second-biggest airline burned 3.9 billion gallons last year, including United Express flights.”

So why are United and other airlines not using more biofuel? Why did we wait until 2016 to make biofuel commercial flights happen?

Professor Bell of the University of California, Berkeley, explained why when he recently spoke to the BBC. In the interview he outlined some of the many problems facing developers of biofuels for aircraft, listing some of the strict requirements of aviation fuel as follows.

“The first one [requirement] is that there must be no oxygen content, the reason being that any oxygen you put in decreases the energy density and as space on an aircraft is at a premium, and you’d like to pack in as much energy in the form of burnable fuel as possible.

Second, the fuel must have the right boiling point distribution, and then it has to have properties called lubricity, which means it does not cause excessive wear of the turbine components.

It also has to have a very low pour point, which means the temperature at which the fuel becomes gelatinous and therefore no longer flows. When you are up in the stratosphere, temperatures around the aircraft are around -40C (-40F) or -50C, so you do not want your fuel gelling up on you.”

So does this mean that biofuelled commercial aviation is just a temporary gimmick? Is it all just a United Airlines ‘pie in the sky’ publicity stunt?

When speaking to Forbes magazine, Ross Macfarlane, Senior Advisor for Business Partnerships for the nonprofit Climate Solutions, was more upbeat about the press release. He believes that biofuelled commercial flights are a real possibility for the future. He said, “Five, six years ago it was still a question of whether there were viable alternatives to fossil-based fuels that people could safely fly on that could be viably developed. [Today] Those questions have been answered. It’s not a question of if you can do it, the issue now is really about scale and sustainability.”

Today, the blending of biofuels with fossil fuels is common practice for many uses, for example, the US Navy is already buying “military-specification diesel fuel and jet fuel that are blended with biofuels.”

But the fact that the United flight was a solely biofuel powered journey, utilising industrial quantities of biofuel for a major airline, has started other large fuel consuming industries to question their dependence on fossil fuels. Now shipping companies and the chemical industry are waking up to the idea of large scale biofuel consumption as both a cheaper and more sustainable option.

While for most uses the environmental argument for biofuel use has been won, the economic debate is still unclear, and may be for some time whilst oil prices continue their uncertain path.

Whatever happens, the switch will not happen overnight. Chemical processing plants and aeroplane engines take years to plan, test and construct, so United will not be replacing all their engines tomorrow. The growing of sufficient crop to make United’s 3.9 billion gallons of fuel will also take some time, if it is in fact feasible.

But with the groundbreaking journey and the aviation industry’s giant leap towards biofuel flight, was March11th 2016 the day that the biofuel revolution began?