Petrochemicals in the oil industry value chain

The aim of the article is to give a short overview about the role of the petrochemicals performed at the value chain of the crude oil industry. Petrochemical industry as a consumer of the oil products represents a significant part of the oil product portfolio. Not only the arbitrage activity among the regions and continents helps to smooth the regional supply-demand unbalances of fuels but the petrochemical industry is an integrated part of global balancing mechanism through the flexible feedstock processing capability thanks to the technological ability.

The changes of the fuel consumption in strategic term can be manageable easier way with the contribution of petrochemical industry. Besides the transfer of steam cracker feedstocks the article higlights the role and importance of the other material streams also. The reader can get a more exact picture about strict integration of Downstream and Petrochemicals Division of MOL Group and dependence on each other by the analysing of coproducts' significance.

István Maráczi