In recent years, the global ethylene industry has experienced changes in output, changes in production capacity, changes in technology, and changes in raw materials. In the constant transformation, different regions have ushered in different challenges.

From 2000 to 2013, global ethylene production increased from 100 million tons to 155 million tons, while more than 70% of new production capacity came from the Middle East and China, and the Middle East ethylene production capacity increased from 6.5 million tons to 30 million tons. Capacity increased from 4.3 million tons to 20 million tons.

During the period, the production capacity of most new projects in the Middle East is not small. Since 2005, 15 steam cracker installations using light gas as feedstock have exceeded 1 million tons/year in the region. After this round of capital investment, the capacity of world-scale ethylene plants increased from 1.3 million tons/year to 1.5 million tons/year. Ten years ago, the design capacity of a world-class ethylene plant was only 600,000 tons/year to 800,000 tons/year, which is only half of the capacity of large-scale ethylene plants in the world today.

In the past, the development of China's ethylene industry was mainly based on liquid raw materials. However, due to the limited supply of oil and gas resources, especially the availability of naphtha, about half of China's new ethylene capacity since the 21st century has been built on the basis of a heavy feedstock cracking (dry point at 540°C) process. In recent years, the profitability of related devices is expected to increase further as ethylene feedstocks shift to lower-cost diesel distillates.

In North America, the success of shale gas has made the supply of cheap ethane raw materials very abundant, and has driven the petrochemical industry to embark on a road to recovery. The latest report of the American Chemical Industry Council (ACC) states that in the next few years, the United States will build more than 10 large-scale ethylene cracking projects, most of which will be world-class devices with a capacity of 1.5 million tons per year. In addition, there are many crackers that use liquefied petroleum gas (LPG)/naphtha (NPP) as raw materials. Raw material adaptation is being carried out so that it can use ethane as raw material to increase the profitability of the plant. The shift of naphtha to ethylene from ethylene naphtha will inevitably result in a significant reduction in the propylene production of the steam cracker. To compensate for the global propylene supply gap in the future, specialised propylene projects based on new technical solutions (such as propane dehydrogenation, methanol to propylene) Will be launched in large quantities.

In Europe and India, in order to remain competitive, local producers are developing and implementing ethylene-based process technology that uses ethylene as a raw material for low-cost refinery refinement. For example, India's Xincheng Industrial Co., Ltd. is building a 1.4 million-ton/year ethylene cracking project that uses raw gas from refineries as raw materials. The industry believes that the production of petrochemical products using low-cost gas as a raw material to help improve the profitability of the refinery, has a good prospect for development.

In addition, in those regions where oil resources are scarce, relevant manufacturers are accelerating the development of new technologies that use coal as raw materials to produce olefins. Taking China as an example, these technologies can only provide 2% of olefin production. It is expected that by 2020, the proportion of coal-based ethylene production will increase to nearly 20%. In the Middle East, new steam cracker projects are turning to mixed feedstocks (ethane/liquefied petroleum gas/naphtha/diesel) to maintain the flexibility of raw materials while also producing a variety of olefin products to meet market demand. In the future, these mixed raw material ethylene crackers may become the new standard in the ethylene industry.

At the same time, the petrochemical industry in various countries is still pursuing higher health, safety and environment (HSE) standards in the course of industrial upgrading and meeting relevant air emission regulations. In short, in the next decade, the global petrochemical industry will continue to develop new technologies and adopt new solutions to deal with changes in the market, thus contributing to the continuous progress and development of the industry.