Analysis: Global demand for alpha olefins to grow by 5%

09 February 2004 18:29  [Source: ICIS news]

HOUSTON (CNI)--Global demand for linear alpha olefins reached slightly more than 3m tonne in 2002, a leading industry consultancy said Monday, and the segment is likely to see nearly 5% annual growth through 2015.

Nexant ChemSystems said today that its newly completed report, "Alpha Olefins," predicts that segment growth will be about 4.9% annually in years ahead, driven by applications in polyethylene (PE) comonomers, synthetic lubricants, detergent intermediates, paper sizing agents, lubricant additives, oilfield chemicals and "a myriad of small fine and performance chemical uses."

Alpha olefin producers, ChemSystems notes, fall into two categories: (A) full range, which includes those that use ethylene oligomerization to provide a C4/C6 to C20 range of products, and (B) on-purpose producers, including butene-1 and hexene-1 only producers.

While average annual growth rates look promising, ChemSystems notes that "there is an increasing divergence between comonomer alpha olefin demand growth and that of higher fractions."

"Consequently," said ChemSystems, "R&D efforts have focused on reducing the carbon number make of full range units or developing new on-purpose routes to comonomers."

ChemSystems said its report examines new full-range processes and new on-purpose processes and details end-use applications as well as worldwide alpha olefin demand by end use to 2015.

Nexant ChemSystems is headquartered at White Plains, New York.

By: Joe Kamalick
+1 713 525 2653

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