[Plastic] Global production capacity will be over 14.90 million tons/year postponed multiple PE projects in North America

Global PE demand will now grow negatively

Affected by the new crown pneumonia epidemic, relevant agencies previously predicted that global GDP will grow by 2.

Nick Vafiadis, vice president of plastics business at IHS Markit, said: “Due to the spread of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, global PE demand has decreased.

PTTGC and CPChem postpone investment

Due to the uncertainty caused by the new crown pneumonia epidemic, recently, Chevron Phillips Chemical Company (CPChem) and PTT Global Chemical Company (PTTGC) have announced the postponement of the final investment decision (FID) of the polyethylene (PE) project in the United States.

IHS Markit analysts said that factors such as financial conditions, slowing market demand growth, overcapacity, and crude oil pricing have cast a shadow over the prospects of PE projects.

CPChem and Qatar Petroleum (QP) announced in July 2019 that they would build the USGC II petrochemical project.

On July 14, Thailand’s PTT Global Chemical Company (PTTGC) announced that Daelim Chemical America (DCA) had withdrawn from the cooperation project in Belmont County, Ohio.

Steve Lewandowski, vice president of global olefins at IHS Markit, said that PTTGC plans to recruit new partners and make a final investment decision (FID) before the end of this year.

CPChem and PTTGC’s announcement of the delay in the polyethylene project is consistent with the global fiscal austerity trend that began in March due to the new crown pneumonia epidemic.

Projects already started are also postponed

In order to curb the spread of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, some PE projects that have started construction have also been postponed:

Shell completely stopped the construction of the Pen State petrochemical plant with an investment of US$6 billion in March of this year.

Nova Chemicals reduced the $1.

In late April, Nova Chemicals announced the partial resumption of construction of the petrochemical project in Sarnia, which will increase its Corunna cracking capacity by 50% and add a 450,000-ton/year PE device.

(Keyword: PE North America)