Global catalyst market highlights

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China Drying Network News Emerging markets for fuel, chemical products and materials will continue to support the global catalyst consumption. Some new chemical and polymer installations in North America will be put into operation before 2020, which will also support the growth of catalyst consumption. The closure of refineries in North America and Europe and the recent cooling of the Chinese economy have not caused catalyst producers to worry. They predict that the catalyst demand will maintain a healthy growth rate in the next few years because the market has enough bright spots to support the expansion of energy and R&D investment.

Refinery catalysts grow moderately

Sean Abrams, head of catalyst technology at U.S. catalyst giant Grace, predicts that demand for global refining catalysts will increase at an average annual rate of 2% to 3% over the next three years. Strong demand from emerging markets is making up for North America and Western Europe. The decline in road fuel demand.

Manufacturers said that the refining raw materials are becoming increasingly heavy and difficult to process. Refiners are using more fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) residue catalysts to increase light oil and olefin production. At the same time, the demand for hydrotreating catalysts (HPCs) is also growing, as refiners need to expand their hydrofining capacity to cope with the increase in the sulfur content of crude oil and the increasingly stringent regulations for global oil sulfur content.

Although FCC catalyst producers are facing challenges from the shutdown of refineries in North America and Europe, they said that the reduced refining capacity in North America and Western Europe has been offset by new capacity in China and the Middle East. Abrams said that in the next five years, 16 new FCC units will be built in the Middle East and South Asia, which will increase the catalyst market in these two regions by about US$150 million. In March this year, Grace signed a memorandum of understanding with Abu Dhabi Al Dahra Agricultural Co., Ltd. to build a new FCC catalyst and additive plant in Abu Dhabi, the first Grace factory in the country. It is expected to start production in mid-2015.

In order to meet the huge hydrofinishing demand, some companies have already invested in the new hydrorefining catalyst project. Petrobras said that the company’s demand for hydrofining catalysts will increase fivefold by 2016 and the company has signed a memorandum of understanding with Albemarle Corporation in late 2010 to plan a new construction in Santa Cruz, Brazil. A hydrofining catalyst plant. At present, the front-end project of the project has been completed, but the construction work is expected to be postponed for one year. Albemarle and BHP plan to build a new world-class HPC plant in Brazil's FCC catalyst and additives plant, which has been in operation for 25 years. The new HPC installation will primarily meet the growing demand for HPC in the South American region, especially the Brazilian market, as Brazil's fuel sulfur content standard may be significantly reduced from 500 ppm to 10 ppm in the next 5 or 6 years.

Polyolefin catalyst growth recovery

For polyolefin catalysts such as polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), the factors affecting China's economic growth have a greater impact. Clyde Payn, president of Catalyst Group (TCG), stated: "China accounts for a large proportion of global polymer catalyst demand. If China's economic growth slows to an average of 5% to 6% per year, then this The impact is considerable."

Despite this, catalyst manufacturers are still optimistic about the Chinese market. Tracy Clayler, global communications director of Dow Chemical's high performance plastics licensing and catalysts business, said that while the Chinese economy is cooling down, the company expects the demand for Unipol PP patented technology and catalyst systems in the Chinese market will continue to grow. Tony Dondro, general manager of Grace's dedicated catalyst business, said that the company expects the average annual growth rate of polyolefin catalysts will recover to a historical average of 5%. Demand for polyolefin catalysts in China has been declining in 2012, but the success of the shale gas revolution has made North America a new driving force for the growth of demand for polyolefin catalysts.

In addition, Western polymer producers are looking to produce more differentiated polymer products to avoid the impact of low-cost bulk polymer producers in the Middle East. This will bring business opportunities to specialized polyolefin catalyst producers.

Shale gas gives birth to new business opportunities

Regional changes in demand and raw materials are also affecting the chemical catalyst market. Michael Bayer, BASF's vice president of chemical catalyst business, said: “The growth momentum of global chemical catalysts comes from Asia, and there are a lot of new production capacity in this area is gradually put into production. In the past 4 years, our chemical catalyst business in Asia has been Doubled, the main business growth occurred in China. In addition, North American cheap ethane and natural gas feedstock is stimulating the local chemical production capacity increase, which will become another huge catalyst for chemical catalyst growth.”

The development of shale gas is bringing many commercial opportunities to catalyst manufacturers. Cheaper ethane feedstocks have stimulated new investment in crackers and polyethylene in North America, but the dramatic drop in naphtha cracker capacity will cause a serious shortage of propylene supply in North America. The transformation of raw materials has prompted manufacturers to seek different production processes, such as increasing the yield of olefins and producing butane from syngas. The decline in naphtha cracking capacity will shift producers to specialized butane and propylene production processes, all of which require new catalysts.

The market is increasingly interested in technologies that specialize in the production of propylene. For example, the demand for propane dehydrogenation, disproportionation, high severity FCC, olefin cracking, methanol to olefins, and methanol to propylene is growing. IHS Chemical expects that by 2016, propylene produced by the above-mentioned specialized technologies will account for 20% of the global propylene supply, which is 4 percentage points higher than the current proportion.

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