Last week, BASF, Dow Chemical, DSM, and Solvay Minerals announced that they had conducted the first transactions on Elemica. By connecting their enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to Elemica, the companies can route their ongoing contractual business through the network. ERP connectivity, they say, is a critical component of their e-business strategies.

Although smaller than Elemica, Envera appeared to enjoy a first-mover advantage, launching transactions in October 2000. Thus, the announcement that it would merge with ChemConnect, a dot-com, came as somewhat of a surprise (C&EN, June 11, page 10). Operating as ChemConnect, the merged firm believes it will offer companies a broader solution--everything from supply-chain integration and contractual business to spot and commodity trading.

"We applaud this move," says Steven J. Kafka, Forrester Research analyst, because the "combination helps prune the overabundance of e-marketplaces within the chemical industry." Among the major players still left are third-party exchange CheMatch.com and polymer industry network Omnexus.

Only a year ago, chemical company exchanges (CTXs) were seen as pitted against third-party dot-coms (ITXs). Now the new links between the two are raising questions about ownership ties. For example, many of the partners in Elemica previously invested in ChemConnect. Elemica recently combined operations with the industry site ElastomerSolutions as well.

"Although it is too early to tell how the multiple overlapping B2B [business-to-business] marketplace ownership issues will work out," says Leif Eriksen, AMR Research analyst, the structure of the new ChemConnect "does answer one of the mysteries of B2B marketplace math: ITX + CTX= ITX."

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