In recent years, the global ethylene industry has shown a phenomenon of changes in production volume, distribution of production capacity, technology, and raw materials. In the constant transformation, different regions have also encountered different challenges.

From 2000 to 2013, global ethylene production increased from 100 million tons to 155 million tons, with over 70% of the new capacity coming from the Middle East and China. The ethylene production capacity in the Middle East increased from 6.5 million tons to 30 million tons, while that in China increased from 4.3 million tons to 20 million tons.

During this period, the production capacity of most new projects in the Middle East was not small. Since 2005, there have been 15 steam cracking units in the region that use light gases as raw materials and have a design capacity exceeding 1 million tons per year. After this round of capital investment, the production capacity of the world-class ethylene plant has increased from 1.3 million tons per year to 1.5 million tons per year. Ten years ago, the design capacity of world-class ethylene plants was only 600000 to 800000 tons per year, which is only half of the capacity of large-scale ethylene plants in the world today.

In the past period, the development of China's ethylene industry was mainly based on liquid raw materials. However, due to limited supply of oil and gas resources, especially the availability of naphtha, approximately half of China's newly added ethylene production capacity since the 21st century has been built based on heavy feedstock cracking (dry point at 540 ℃) processes. In recent years, with the shift of ethylene raw materials towards using lower cost diesel fractions, the profitability of related facilities is expected to further improve.

In North America, the success of the shale gas revolution has led to abundant supply of cheap ethane raw materials and propelled the petrochemical industry onto a path of revival. The latest report from the American Chemical Council (ACC) states that over the next few years, the United States will build more than 10 large-scale ethylene cracking projects, most of which will be world-class facilities with a production capacity of 1.5 million tons per year. In addition, many cracking units using liquefied petroleum gas/naphtha as raw materials are undergoing raw material adaptation modifications to improve their profitability by using ethane as raw material. The shift of ethylene industry raw materials from naphtha to ethane will inevitably lead to a significant reduction in propylene production in steam cracking units. In order to make up for the future global propylene supply gap, specialized propylene projects based on new technological solutions (such as propane dehydrogenation and methanol to propylene) will be launched in large quantities.

In Europe and India, in order to maintain competitiveness, local producers are developing and implementing process technologies for producing ethylene using low-priced release gas from refineries as raw materials. India's Xincheng Industrial Company is constructing a 1.4 million ton/year ethylene cracking project using refinery vent gas as raw material. The industry believes that the technology route of producing petrochemical products from low-priced release gas as raw materials can help refineries improve profitability and has good development prospects.

In addition, in areas where oil resources are scarce, relevant producers are accelerating the development of new technologies for producing olefins from coal as raw material. Taking China as an example, currently this type of technology 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 cracking unit projects are shifting towards mixed feedstock (ethane/liquefied petroleum gas/naphtha/diesel), which can produce various olefin products while maintaining feedstock flexibility to meet market demand. In the future, these mixed raw material ethylene cracking units may become the new standard in the ethylene industry.

At the same time, the petrochemical industry in various countries is constantly pursuing higher health, safety, and environmental (HSE) standards and meeting relevant air emission regulations in the process of industrial upgrading. In short, in the next decade, the global petrochemical industry will continue to develop new technologies and adopt new solutions to respond to market changes, thereby promoting the continuous progress and development of the industry.