NORTH AMERICA ETHYLENE: 'If You Aren't Going All The Way, Why Go At All?'(PPT)

摘要

A year ago, the projection was for ethylene producers to begin taking advantage of the growing ethane advantage through a series of capacity debottlenecks and the addition of one grassroots steamcracker. If you were optimistic then possibly two crackers might be added. At NPRA right after the 2010 WPC, Chevron Phillips became the frst company to jump into the expansion pool by announcing a grass roots project. It soon became clear that the production side of the equation universally decided that the ethane advantage was real and here to stay, and capital investment in the United States was called for. Thus, not only did the past year see announcements of debottlenecks and restarts totaling around 1.2 million tons but six grassroots cracker projects were announced. Not to be left behind, steamcracker and derivative expansions were added in Canada as well, also based upon the shale natural gas liquids development. In addition, the previously announced Mexican project continued to make progress. Including the Braskem/Idesa project, all total, almost 10 million MT of capacity announcements were mentioned during the year. The momentum for this level of investment grew as the fnancial results for the year began to add up. By year's end, the annual average acquisition price margin results for the U.S. producer were the best since 1989. This level of result is enticing as is the prospect of doing business in a stable environment like North America. Thus there is now an unprecedented wave of activity not just in petrochemicals but also in the required supporting infrastructure. Indeed companies seemed to adopt the advice, "if you aren't going all the way, why go at all"and most apparently are ready to go all the way.