SPE: A-NZ President Letter

Dear members and supporters of SPE-ANZ,

At our AGM on the 23rd of September, I took over the baton from Hamed as president of the SPE-ANZ section.

It is a great honour to follow in his footsteps and those that have led the section before. I want to thank Hamed for his dedication to the section as president for four years and his ongoing commitment as publicity chair and vice president. I equally want to acknowledge Han Michel who recruited me into the CoM four years ago as treasurer and later vice president and continues to be a stalwart for SPE in Australia and New Zealand.

At the AGM the other office bearers and ordinary members of the CoM were also (re-)elected. We welcome Lynley Crawford to the CoM for FY27. Great to have representation from New Zealand. Nasim stepped up as treasurer this year taking over from myself whilst Ricki is taking up the education chair from Puneet who we thank for his efforts over the last years. My thanks also go to the other CoM members who have renewed their commitment. The full list of the CoM for this financial year is:

• Jeroen Wassenaar (President)

• Hamed Ghajarnia (Vice President & Publicity Chair)

• Nasim Motamed (Treasurer)

• Russel Speight (Company Secretary, Councilor and Corporate Affairs)

• Yvonne Mah (Program Chair)

• Neil Whelan (Deputy Program Chair)

• James Ng (Membership Chair)

• Ricki Hersburgh (Education Chair)

• Carlos Demnati (VP NSW)

• Roger Cater (VP QLD)

• Jeremy Curtin (VP SA)

• John Meriton

• Lynley Crawford

• Shane Weeks

Once the formalities were out of the way, Mitchell Killeen from Polymirae provided us with a unique insight into the Korean petrochemical and plastics industry undergoing significant restructuring to address local overcapacity through China's self-sufficiency for polymer manufacturing. It was impressive to see the scale, integration and sophistication of the Korean petrochemical industry that now prepares to shift ever further towards differentiated specialty and circular plastic products. It gave rise to a great discussion on what Australia can learn from Korea and how the two countries could tackle circular pathways for hard-to-recycle plastics together. I also want to thank Polymirae for their generous sponsorship of the AGM event.

The second presentation on the night was by Dr. Lei Wang from Matrix Polymers, who provided an update on the latest material developments for rotomoulding compounds. He explored how higher density MPDE compounds can enable lightweighting, shorter production times and energy savings for complex large structures such as watertanks.

It is with great sadness that we had to say goodbye to John Richardson from ICIS who passed away shortly before he was meant to speak at the event. We remember him for his sharp insights on global plastics trade but more importantly as a good friend and colleague with his signature dry english humour. I want to also remember Craig Benson who we lost in the past year for his services to the SPE-ANZ section and the industry.

Further details about upcoming events are included in the links below and I hope to welcome you at many of these in the coming months.

Regards,

Jeroen Wassenaar 

SPE-ANZ President