Petrochemical Industry Overview

Petrochemical Industry Worldwide Directory

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Petrochemical Industry Overview

Chronology - Petrochemical Industry

Petrochemicals, in various forms, had been known since the mid-nineteenth century. Up until that time, the availability of coal, combined with its low cost, had ensured the prevalence of coal-based energy sources. By the late 1850's oil and natural gas was readily available and scientists began to examine them as alternatives to coal. Petroleum, rock oil as it was known, was tested for use as an illuminator to replace the much-used but highly-flammable camphene. Kerosene, a derivative of petroleum and other similar materials, came onto the scene at about the same time. Kerosene quickly and became a staple in American homes.

Carbon black, used in the 1910's to supply the growing tire industry, was most likely the first major petrochemical. The abundance of natural gas also led to its use as a feedstock, and about this time Union Carbide used it to produce various glycols, esters, amines, and ketones. In the years prior to
WW II, the development of organic chemicals shifted from coal to petroleum. War needs for aviation fuels, synthetic rubber and synthetic chemicals for explosives.

The Korean War in 1950 accelerated research & growth of the petrochemical industry. The petrochemical industry continued its rapid growth in the 1950's and 60's, and soon became one of the largest industry sectors. The U.S. environmental movement evolved in the late 1960's and that, plus development of a formidable petrochemical infrastructure in Europe and Japan, brought change.

American companies began to sell off their foreign petrochemical operations. In the early to mid 1970's, petrochemical feedstock supplies grew scarce: first with the availability and price of natural gas, and then in the late 1970's with scarcity of crude oil resulting from the oil embargo. These conditions, worsened by the economic recession of the U.S., influenced many chemical companies to withdraw from the petrochemical industry altogether.

In the 1980's and 90's, the industry underwent a complete restructuring. Individual plants were purchased, refinanced, merged, and reformed into new chemical companies. In many cases, these new companies were created from carefully selected groups of complementary plants and displayed renewed prosperity in petrochemicals. Many of these plants had failed separately but succeeded together because, through reorganization, the individual companies specialized in defined segments of the industry.

Petrochemicals

Petrochemicals are a category of organic chemicals derived principally from two feedstocks: natural gas liquids (NGL) obtained from natural gas processing plants, and oil refinery streams such as naphtha and light gas oil. Primary petrochemicals are reacted to form secondary petrochemicals, other chemical products, or polymerized to form synthetic resins. These in turn are incorporated into a great variety of industrial and consumer products.

Feedstocks

NGL's (principally ethane, propane, and butanes) are “cracked” at high temperatures to yield the primary petrochemical building blocks of ethylene, propylene, butylenes and butadiene. Cracking crude oil based feedstocks, such as naphtha or gas oil, yields higher ratios of the ethylene co-products propylene, butylenes, and butadiene, plus the aromatic products benzene, toluene, and xylenes along with other co-products.

Petrochemical feedstocks can be classified into three general groups: olefins, aromatics, and a third group that includes synthesis gas and inorganics. In many instances, a specific chemical included among the petrochemicals may also be obtained from other sources, such as coal, coke, or vegetable products. Materials such as benzene and naphthalene can be made from either petroleum or coal, while ethyl alcohol may be of petrochemical or vegetable origin.

Petrochemical Products

Products made from petrochemicals include plastics, soaps, detergents, solvents, paint thinner, paints, drugs, fertilizer, pesticides, explosives, synthetic fibers and rubbers, and flooring and insulating materials. Petrochemicals are found in such common products as aspirin, cars, clothing, compact discs, video tapes, electronic equipment, and furniture.

Petrochemical Processing

A petrochemical processing plant is designed to produce physical and chemical changes in feedstock and convert it into desired products. Three basic processes employed at US petrochemical plants are cracking, isomerization, and reforming.Catalytic Cracking

Cracking is used to break up large hydrocarbon molecules into smaller and more useful bits. This is achieved by using high pressures and temperatures without a catalyst, or lower temperatures and pressures with a catalyst. The source of the large hydrocarbon molecules is often the naphtha fraction or the gas oil fraction from the fractional distillation of crude oil. These fractions are obtained from the distillation process as liquids, but are re-vaporized before cracking.

The hydrocarbons are mixed with a very fine catalyst powder of aluminum oxide and silicon dioxide, then the whole mixture is blown rather like a liquid through a reaction chamber at a temperature of about 950°F. Because the mixture behaves like a liquid, this is known as fluid catalytic cracking. Although the mixture of gas and fine solid behaves as a liquid, this is nevertheless an example of heterogeneous catalysis: the catalyst is in a different phase from the reactants. The catalyst is recovered afterwards, and the cracked mixture is separated by cooling and further fractional distillation.

Isomerization

Rearranging straight chain molecules into their isomers with branched chains is known as isomerization. One process uses a platinum catalyst on a zeolite (a clay material) base at a temperature of about 480°F and a pressure of 13 - 30 atmospheres. It is used particularly to change straight chains containing 5 or 6 carbon atoms into their branched isomers. Isomerization is important to raise the octane rating of the molecules found in gasoline, in order to reduce knocking and to induce the gasoline to burn more efficiently in modern engines.

Reforming

Reforming is a process which uses heat, pressure and a catalyst to improve the octane rating of hydrocarbons to be used in petrol; and is also a useful source of aromatic compounds for the chemical industry. Aromatic compounds are based on a benzene ring. Isomerization reactions occur, as previously described, with the additional result of chain molecules getting converted into rings with the loss of hydrogen. Hexane, for example, gets converted into benzene, and heptane into methylbenzene.

The Business of Petrochemicals

Most of the basic chemical production in the United States is concentrated along the Gulf Coast, where petroleum and natural gas feedstocks are available from refineries. Texas and Louisiana currently produce about 70% of all primary petrochemicals. Production of other products, such as plastics, pharmaceuticals, and fertilizers, is more widely dispersed among the states.

Future Growth Prospects - North America

Natural gas and natural gas liquids are used as the primary feedstocks in domestic petrochemical plants. U.S. natural gas consumption is forecasted by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) to increase at an annual percentage growth rate of 1.8% from 2001 to 2025.

The production of Natural Gas Plant Liquids is projected to increase at an annual growth percentage of
1.5%. The demand for petrochemicals is expected to increase steadily based on forecasted increase in economic activity worldwide and in the U.S.; however, a major concern is the availability of primary feedstock at a reasonable cost to keep the U.S. petrochemical industry competitive in a worldwide marketplace.

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