Houston, TX January 21, 2003 Chemicals marketplace ChemConnect Inc. today announced that in 2002 it doubled its pro forma transaction volume over 2001 with 16,000 transactions valued in excess of $8.8 billion USD. Last year the marketplace also saw membership reach more than 30,000 individuals in 150 countries.
The year began with the acquisition of CheMatch, followed by ChemConnect's move to Houston, Texas, in order to be closer to its customer base. Shortly thereafter, ChemConnect acquired the natural gas liquid (NGL) trading platform of Altra Energy, known as Chalkboard. The company said these moves were designed to bolster product liquidity and, in October, the company completed the integration of these acquisitions by launching its Commodity Markets Platform, which supports the physical and financial trading of NGLs and commodity chemicals, such as aromatics, oxygenates and olefins.
Using ChemConnect's online auctions, members completed more than 1,000 product negotiations. According to the company, of particular note was an increase in sell-side auctions comprising over 40 percent of the total as suppliers used ChemConnect to reach current and new customers.
On the purchasing side, a number of customers expanded their use of ChemConnect's online reverse auctions with the intention of moving more than half of their direct material spend through ChemConnect auctions.
In addition, ChemConnect added new personalization features for members to track only the products they buy or sell. The company said that with the features, members actively follow more than 4,700 different products to determine market conditions and identify new business partners around the world.
ChemConnect Connectivity solutions continued to expand in 2002 as the company formed a partnership with GE Operation Services, now Intellitrans, for vendor-managed inventory (VMI) tracking and management.
Also, ChemConnect and Global eXchange Services (GXS) are exchanging electronic documents through a hub-to-hub connection. In 2002, more than 30 companies exchanged in excess of 250,000 messages via the ChemConnect hub.
ChemConnect CEO John Robinson said, "In a year characterized by caution, we've made tremendous progress, thanks in no small part to the vision of our customers who continue to use ChemConnect in their push to achieve operational efficiency. The acquisitions and partnerships we have made combined to promote product liquidity and build bridges to our customers' trading partners in other industries."
