Chemical formula right for synthesising great wealth.

The North-East has the chemistry essential to be a world leader in technological advances, says Brian Nicholls.

One glance at the Top 200 will show how times have changed ( and how the North-East chemicals sector for example has diversified, broadened its horizons even further and taken the region onto new frontiers of development.

Once "North-East chemicals" and "ICI" were invariably uttered in the same breath. ICI, since 1883, had led Teesside's growth as a global chemicals centre. Its workforce reached 35,000 at peak.

ICI is still there ( and at Prudhoe in Northumberland ( but now employing fewer than 1,000 people to turn out a variety of products from paints and polymers to ingredients for toothpaste and soap.

True, it has among other interests pounds 50m invested in a nitrobenzene and aniline plant at Wilton.

But the nature of the beast has changed.

Even when it has a great thing going, it might now choose to sell it on, as it has done with catalyser Synetix to Johnson Matthey.

At the top end of the Top 200 today it's names such as Huntsman International, BASF, Petroplus and Dupont Sabanci Polyester you see filling sixth, 10th, 17th and 24th places respectively ( companies with know-how brought in from the USA, Germany and the Netherlands.

Other mighty participants include Dow Chemicals, BP, Conoco Phillips and Elementis, the world's biggest producer of chrome chemicals.

There has been a huge diffusion of commercial interest, in other words, which whatever else the implication, means the North-East's reputation as a chemicals centre remains sound internationally.

Process-chemicals industries, as they are now called, thus remain the region's biggest generator of wealth. Whatever the job cuts announced from time to time, they still provide work for 35,000 people ( 25pc of the region's manufacturing workers.

Though some companies in that sector come and go and re-invent themselves the North-East has potential global excellence in this field. Thus regional development agency One NorthEast's decision to set up a centre of excellence, the Centre for Process Innovation, which for a year has been working to encourage more regional innovation.

Nigel Perry, CPI's chief executive officer whose career has included 22 years with ICI, said: "We are on course to deliver a centre for world-class research and innovation."

Associated and integrated research goes on at five universities in the region and major support groups ( including companies themselves under the banner of Teesside Chemical Initiative ( share the aim of seeing the North-East sector retain a dominance. In Tees Valley all types of chemicals are represented, from the products of petroleum refining and hydrocarbon separation to pharmaceutical intermediates and fine and speciality chemicals and more recent biotech businesses.

BOC's Teesside plant is the largest industrial-gases complex in Europe.

Where North-East breakthroughs earlier were the likes of Perspex sheets, polyester fibre and polyethylene ( and aviation gasoline made from coal ( today's advances are likely to be fuel-cell technology, green transport initiatives, super-critical fluids and electronic conducting polymers.

Even these are but a fraction of the opportunities, for apart from the extensive range of hydrocarbon products arising from Teesside's North Sea oil and gas reception and separation facilities, no fewer than 300 chemical and related products already manufactured or processed in Tees Valley offer commercial opportunities.

But an effort to ease UK concerns about future energy provision by developing a hydrogen economy will be a major priority, since Tees Valley's advantages include a 30km hydrogen-distribution system already established, with a huge underground store.Expect to see other unfamiliar names suddenly appear high in the 200.