The US shale boom has produced absolutely huge quantities of NGLs. Several US domestic cracker projects are still in the planning and execution phase and are not expected to be online until 2020. This has created enormous levels of oversupply and ethane is currently worth more as natural gas than as liquid ethane.
As the price of crude has dramatically decreased, ethane has lost its competitive advantage over naphtha. This should be bad news for ethane producers and production should slow; but according to the EIA ethane production for the past four months has average an all time high.
Demand for ethane as a feedstock for the petrochemical industry will rise considerably as new Ethane cracking capacity comes online, through 2017-2020. Supply levels still dictate that export is being very strongly considered and the new markets explored.
Join the NGL Feedstocks and Derivatives: Global Supply & Demand Dynamics 2016 Congress to understand the global supply & demand dynamics for ethane, naphtha, propane and butane.
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