Petrochemicals industry is that branch of chemical industry which focuses on the development of organic intermediary goods through which a number of end-use industrial, consumer goods are produced such as refinery products, natural gas, plastics, rubber, fiber raw materials. Petrochemical industry can be defined as being extremely competition focused, with constant requirements of innovations in technologies, advancements in extraction of raw materials, manufacturing methods and requires large capital investments for proper functioning.
The industry in the last half-a-decade has undergone dramatic transformation, with establishment of petrochemical facilities in regions where the feedstock is lowly priced such as in Middle-East and Asia-Pacific region where the abundance in availability of feedstock results in their prices being significantly lower.
One of the major focus currently flooding the petrochemical industry is establishing the manufacturing facilities close to the feedstock origin, or if that’s not possible improving the technologies available with the petroleum industry so that they can improve the functionality of their production process.
Although, recently the trend is having petrochemical industries close to the feedstock origin/source, but market share of major companies indicates that the due to the prevalence of innovative and advanced technologies at the disposal of chemical industries, the abundance of high-quality petrochemical products at their disposal is flourishing.
The main compliment with the establishment of petrochemical industries in the developing regions is supplying of intermediary goods to the local markets produced from the by-products which are rarely utilized by the fuel/petroleum industry. The usage of by-products by the petrochemical industry that have no use to the petroleum industry also solves one major problem which is the storage and disposal of these by-products, when required. Now, because of these by-products acting as the basis in basically all major manufacturing processes of petrochemical products this problem is also solved.
In the near future, petrochemicals industry is set to be the biggest revenue generator for the chemical industry because of the significant areas of applications where the petrochemical products are used such as plastics production, fertilizers, packaging products, clothing, digital electronic devices, medical devices, detergents, tires and other goods.
Conclusion
The petrochemical industry currently needs to abide by certain guidelines and some of the trends that they are already following. Some of these trends are mentioned below:
- The industry currently is focused on developing and advancing the technologies, thereby investing heavily on the R&D activities for manufacturing processes of the petrochemical industry, so as to not be dependent on the vulnerable feedstock prices
- They are also focused on complying to the emission standards present by the authorities to reduce the emissions of CO2 in the facilities
- Industry is also focused on developing more recyclable products rather than manufacturing single-use goods that pose the problem of accumulation of waste
- With the introduction of various regulations presented by the authorities of the world, industry is now conducting better waste management practices reducing the consumption of resources and better managing the wastes generated by them employing better disposal services
To assimilate, petrochemicals industry is an integral part of the functioning of the chemical industry, with the lion’s share of products generated by the chemical industry coming out of the petrochemicals division. This dependency on petrochemicals for revenue generation is health but only if the right amount of investments and strategic decisions are taken to sustain this position.
