According to expert analysis, in recent years, the Middle East has used inexpensive raw materials and adopted advanced technologies and management models from the United States and Europe to establish large-scale petrochemical plants and vigorously produce bulk petrochemical products based on polyethylene, ethylene glycol and methanol. It is predicted that the future 50% growth in ethylene capacity in the world will come from the Middle East. Petrochemical products exported to China from neighboring countries and regions including South Korea, Japan, and China Taiwan accounted for 60% to 80% of China's total imports of petrochemical products since 2003. In contrast, the overall supply and demand of China's petrochemical products is unbalanced and there is a serious regional disparity, and its consumption is mainly concentrated in the coastal developed regions such as East China and South China. For example, in 2004, the consumption of polyethylene in East China and South China respectively accounted for 46% and 18.8% of the country's total consumption.
Experts suggest that in the face of new international competition, China should concentrate its resources and capital in the next five years. It is a relatively mature large-scale chemical industry park in the Yangtze River Delta, Hangzhou Bay, and the Pan-Pearl River Delta. It is led by oil refineries and ethylene plants. To attract domestic and foreign investors, further extend the industrial chain, increase industrial concentration, achieve ultra-large-scale development of downstream products of refining and refining, and increase overall competitiveness. At the same time, the two major companies, PetroChina and Sinopec, have a reasonable division of labor and complementary strengths, focusing on the development of core products with large market capacity, such as polyethylene, polypropylene, ABS, p-xylene, PTA and ethylene glycol, and selectively based on regional characteristics. Develop organic raw materials such as phenolacetone, butyl octanol, acrylic acid and esters. In particular, in response to the fierce competition in the Middle East, it is necessary to focus on the development of propylene and aromatic derivatives to improve the product's differential competitive advantage.
Experts also pointed out that the construction of large-scale chemical parks should pay special attention to product differentiation, high value-added and high-performance technologies; low-cost production technology using alkanes as raw materials; application of information technology in the petrochemical industry; and emission-reduction cleanliness , environmental protection technologies; nanotechnology, biotechnology, modern catalytic technologies and composite materials technologies.
In the face of the rapidly rising competitive landscape of the petrochemical industry in the Middle East, experts suggest that the next five years focus on building large chemical parks.
The rapid development of the petrochemical industry in the Middle East and the large number of exports from neighboring Asian countries have brought enormous challenges to the development of the domestic petrochemical industry. Therefore, in the next five years, China should focus on the construction of chemical parks, highlight core products, and increase industrial concentration to meet the challenges. This is a consensus reached by more than 200 academicians, experts, and scholars from all over the country on the November 3 petrochemical academic annual meeting.