Petchem Market Outlook
The market and future of petrochemical products was the focus of another specialized meeting of IPFwhich was chaired by Abbas Taeb. The seminar noted and discussed the necessity of technical support for refining and petrochemical industries, polyethylene and polypropylene market in the Middle East as well as the global supply chain of plastics.
An analyst from Dubai said he believes that several issues, including Iran’s economic situation and a key housing plan in the United Arab Emirates and even football matches in Qatar, can all affect petrochemical markets in the Middle East over the next few years.
“Should US-led sanctions be fully lifted in 2014, more PE supply from Iran will likely be exported into the region and into the key Europe and Asia markets,” said Muhamad Fdhil Bin Abdul Rahim, ICIS Middle East chief correspondent.
He predicted that Borouge 3 will come on-stream in 2014. “In 2015 Sadra Chemical Company is expected to operate its new facility,” he added, arguing that both incidents will affect prices of PE and PP in the Middle East.
Even Qatar World Cup 2022, he said, could affect the markets.
ICIS will examine the impact of key challenges facing Middle East producers and the expected demand uplift from Qatar World Cup 2022 and the Dubai Expo 2020 and.
The analyst said Dubai housing projects aimed at providing residents for visitors of the 2020 world event will also affect petrochemical markets in Asia in the next few years.
Prema Viswanathan, Platts Associate Editorial Director, said the shale boom in the United States petrochemical industry will increase US exports targeted mainly at Latin America, Europe and even Asia, offering competition to Middle East players.
“The shale boom will have a significant impact on aromatics production,” she said.
“As shale gas typically has a very negligible yield of pygas and aromatics, this may result in the US being an importer of aromatics on a bigger scale,” she added.
She said despite the challenge posed by shale gas, “the Middle East is expected to continue maintaining its edge, being lowest on the cost curve.”
Asian countries including China, she added, will continue to be a major consumer of petrochemicals in the coming years. “China is pushing ahead with its CTO and MTO projects because of its coal feedstock advantage, as the cost of coal is almost one-third of the cost of naphtha.
Petrochemical Trend
The fifth specialized seminar of IPF focused on petrochemical trend. It reviewed advanced catalytic solutions for Iran’s petrochemical industries, air separation units, methanol markets in Asia and Oceania and innovation in the petrochemical industry.
The main points discussed by foreign guests attending this roundtable are as follows:
Better catalysts would be needed, as demand rises for bigger urea and ammoniac units.
New catalyst enhances productivity by 20 percent; as a result less catalyst will be needed for methanol production.
Catalysis is the enhancement in the rate of a chemical reaction of one or more reactants due to the participation of an additional substance called a catalyst. Unlike other reagents in the chemical reaction, a catalyst is not consumed by the reaction. With a catalyst, less free energy is required to reach the transition state, but the total free energy from reactants to products does not change. A catalyst may participate in multiple chemical transformations.
Although catalysts are not consumed by the reaction itself, they may be inhibited, deactivated, or destroyed by secondary processes. In heterogeneous catalysis, typical secondary processes include coking where the catalyst becomes covered by polymeric side products. Additionally, heterogeneous catalysts can dissolve into the solution in a solid-liquid system or sublimate in a solid-gas system.
Downstream petrochemical units, particularly methanol production units, need energy and oxygen. Therefore, air separation units are vital.
Crude oil prices in 2015 will affect China’s petrochemical imports notably methanol purchase.
China imported 4.8 million tons of methanols in 2013.
In China, methanol is used as a motor fuel in various blends ranging from 5% methanol in gasoline (M5) to 100% methanol (M100). Methanol accounts for 7-8% of China’s transportation fuel pool.
Methanol is produced naturally in the anaerobic metabolism of many varieties of bacteria, and is commonly present in small amounts in the environment. As a result, there is a small fraction of methanol vapor in the atmosphere. Over the course of several days, atmospheric methanol is oxidized with the help of sunlight to carbon dioxide and water.
The largest use of methanol by far is in making other chemicals. About 40% of methanol is converted to formaldehyde, and from there into products as diverse as plastics, plywood, paints, explosives, and permanent press textiles.
Methanol is a traditional denaturant for ethanol, the product being known as "denatured alcohol" or "methylated spirit". This was commonly used during the prohibition to discourage consumption of bootlegged liquor, and ended up causing several deaths.
Methanol is also used as a solvent, and as antifreeze in pipelines and windshield washer fluid.
In some wastewater treatment plants, a small amount of methanol is added to wastewater to provide a carbon food source for the denitrifying bacteria, which convert nitrates to nitrogen to reduce the nitrification of sensitive aquifers.
During World War II, methanol was used as a fuel in several German military rocket designs, under the name M-Stoff, and in a roughly 50/50 mixture with hydrazine, known as C-Stoff.
Methanol was used as automobile coolant antifreeze in the early 1900s.
Methanol is used as a denaturing agent in polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis.
Methanol is readily biodegradable in both aerobic (oxygen present) and anaerobic (oxygen absent) environments. Methanol will not persist in the environment. The half-life for methanol in groundwater is just one to seven days, while many common gasoline components have half-lives in the hundreds of days (such as benzene at 10–730 days). Since methanol is miscible with water and biodegradable, it is unlikely to accumulate in groundwater, surface water, air or soil.