The North American petrochemical industry will continue to attract major capital investment in the mid-term, but controlling construction costs and schedules will be key to petrochemical producers in the next few years, especially to companies that will be exporting much of their production and need to offer very competitive prices, according to experts at Petrochemical Update’s Petrochemical Engineering & Construction (PEC) conference on June 7.
There are about 10 major ethylene projects currently underway in the U.S., with the peak of new capacity, labor, materials and equipment demand expected in 2016-2018, Bruce Burke, senior vice president Energy and Chemicals Advisory at Nexant, said during the first day of the conference.
Speaking to around 700 delegates at PEC and its co-located Gulf Coast Shutdowns and Turnarounds conference in New Orleans, Burke said that North America is projected to add 12 million tons of new ethylene capacity by 2020.
He projects about 7-8 projects will be built in total in North America in the 2020s, as well as about 7-9 crackers per year globally.
