Where is the money in petrochemicals?

Less than 3 percent of a barrel of oil is used as a raw material for producing petrochemicals and plastics. Yet, this low volume represents 18 percent of the total net profits derived from each barrel.

Either petroleum naphtha and/or natural gas are cracked to produce six basic petrochemical building blocks, namely, aliphatics, consisting of:

• ethylene
• propylene
• butylene
• and aromatics, consisting of:
• benzene
• toluene
• xylene.

Almost all of the other petrochemicals and plastics are produced as derivatives of these six basic chemicals as well as ammonia and chlorine.