World Petrochemical Feedstocks

Published December 2006

The petrochemical industry feedstock requirement from oil and gas will be available. Only a third of the world conventional oil has been extracted, and natural gas proven reserves will continue to increase. High fossil fuel prices motivate improvement in exploration and extraction technology. SRIC projects that adequate feedstock will be available for petrochemical production from 2005 to 2015 Feedstock requirement will continue to grow faster at approximately 1.5 times the rate of supply (3.6% versus 2.4% per year, compared to 3.9% and 2% from 1995 to 2005). Because petrochemical feedstock account for only a fraction of supply, feedstock should be available without resorting to extraordinary processing steps. However, the growing supply imbalance in feedstock and fuel demand (e.g. gasoline) among regions is projected to increase resulting in increase in import and export of feedstock, with naphtha from Africa and the Middle East

The production of the basic building blocks of chemicals, (olefins and aromatics) will be near the sources of raw materials and markets all over the world. Demand growth extends outside of China and India, but producers will also supply emerging markets like Latin America, Eastern and Central Europe.

These routes to manufacture primary petrochemicals selection will not only depend on feedstock selection.