Every week, Rinchem shares important articles and topics about chemical and gas logistics, industries we operate in, and the general global supply chain. In this week's review we discuss the Port of Los Angeles' new record, sustainability in chemical manufacturing, and a pharma manufacturing boom.
Keep reading to see this week's hot topics.
This week's stats
848,431- TEUs at the Port of Los Angeles in October. Freight Waves
$370 billion- the amount pharma companies plan to invest in U.S. manufacturing over the next five years. Pharma Voice
Trade volatility pushes LA port towards new record
The Port of Los Angeles has seen steady cargo volumes in October amid ongoing trade volatility, positioning it to hit nearly 10 million TEUs this year — which would mark a record third consecutive year at that level. The surge reflects unpredictable global trade flows but underscores the port’s resilience and importance in freight logistics.
Q&A: Can chemical manufacturing become more sustainable?
The article — a Q&A with chemical-engineering professor Ezra Clark at Penn State University — describes how his research aims to make chemical manufacturing more sustainable by using “thermo-electrocatalytic synergy.” In practice, that means combining traditional thermal catalysts with electrochemical “pumping” to improve the activity and selectivity of key chemical reactions (like partial hydrogenation or oxidation), which are widely used to produce plastics, pharmaceuticals, and other chemicals. If successful, the approach could cut wasteful byproducts and lower environmental harm across many chemical-manufacturing processes — although the technology is still at an early, experimental stage.
4 takeaways from pharma’s manufacturing boom
The article “4 takeaways from pharma’s manufacturing boom” describes how U.S. pharmaceutical manufacturing is surging, with companies pledging more than US$ 370 billion in facility investments over the next five years. Industry insiders say they’ve never seen demand as strong — as one longtime executive put it, “I’ve been in this industry for 35 years … I’ve never seen it as hot as it is right now.” The boom is being driven largely by large pharmaceutical companies reshoring production — but most of the growth is concentrated on brand-name / R&D-intensive firms, not generic-drug manufacturers.
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