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Petrochemicals are chemical products made from the hydrocarbons present in raw natural gas and petroleum crude oil. The largest petrochemical manufacturing industries are to be found in the United States, Western Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
The intermediate feedstocks
The major hydrocarbon sources used in producing petrochemicals are:
- Methane, ethane, propane and butanes: Obtained primarily from natural gas processing plants.
- Naphtha obtained from petroleum refineries.
- Benzene, Toluene and Xylenes, as a whole referred to BTX
- Gas oil obtained from petroleum refineries.
Methane and BTX are used directly as feedstocks for producing petrochemicals.
However, the ethane, propane, butanes, naphtha and gas oil serve as optional feedstocks for processing in steam-assisted thermal cracking plants known as steam crackers to produce these intermediate petrochemical feedstocks:
In 2008, the amount of ethylene and propylene produced in steam crackers was about 125 Mt (megatonnes) and 75 Mt, respectively.
References
Miscellaneous notes
From these basic building blocks is made a very wide range of chemicals and other materials used in industry - monomers, solvents, detergents, and adhesives. From the monomers, polymers or oligomers are produced for plastics, resins, fibers, elastomers, certain lubricants, and gels.