Quo vadis Chemicals

In the past years, the chemical industry has faced up and downs – independent of which sub sector – be it base, petro or specialty chemicals.

Waves of new capacities that came up until last year in petrochemicals reduced the average utilization rate to 80 %, favorable for most specialty chemicals assets, but unsatisfying for large plants and crackers in the petrochemical industry. Since 2010, this is the lowest utilization rate seen. On top of it, the significant energy cost increases as well as the increase costs for CO2 emissions and carbon credits will further challenge the industry in many parts.

To compensate this is in the future, not only the review of the strategic portfolio will continue, but also cost-cutting measures and optimized turnarounds in refineries as well as a more stringent handling of emissions to mitigate environmental costs. Furthermore, a transition of feedstocks, energy supply and recycling of products will impact operations not only in the long run.

This will trigger more measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and so to reduce greenhouse warming potential (GWP) wherever possible. There will also be an increasing demand for flexible services when it comes to plant maintenance and turnarounds to capture emissions and to manage them. This is a key task in Europe and even more in MENA and Asia where major capacities suffer from high emissions.