Chemical firms must search for a more solid future

By its very nature and composition, perhaps no other industry is as hazardous and unpredictable as the chemicals industry.

There is no knowing when disaster might strike. Size and location hardly matter. In the Indian city of Bhopal in 1984, for instance, poisonous gas leaked by the multinational chemical major Union Carbide killed and maimed thousands of people. In its aftermath, many developed countries either mothballed or shifted their chemical factories.

Maybe for reasons of such looming fear, the global chemicals industry is such that it has never managed to punch above its weight.