2009 was a terrible year for the plant design profession across the globe. Worldwide, many chemical and petrochemical projects were halted and new projects scheduled to start were postponed or cancelled. This generated layoffs and a drop in job offers across the entire industry, except perhaps in the upstream sector (crude production) and manufacturing.

On a lighter note, we have some good news to report: our website starts 2010 with a registered membership of 850, up from 580 in 2009. But the bad news is very little participation from our network members. We would certainly welcome any suggestions to remedy this situation.

The tutorials are the part of the site that attracts more visitors. We need to add new tutorials, but lack of feedback from visitors on which subjects to tackle first has delayed action on those items.

We take this opportunity to renew our pledge to continue sharing process plant design knowledge and invite our members to collaborate more actively in the making of the site.