Research and Markets: Kuwait Petrochemicals Report Q3 2012

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/gmj394/kuwait) has announced the addition of the "Kuwait Petrochemicals Report Q3 2012" report to their offering.

The Kuwait Petrochemicals Report provides industry professionals and strategists, corporate analysts, petrochemical associations, government departments and regulatory bodies with independent forecasts and competitive intelligence on Kuwait's petrochemicals industry.

The Kuwait Petrochemicals Report examines the huge but as yet unrealised potential of downstream industries in the light of Kuwait Petrochemical Corporation's (KPC) plans to significantly boost ethylene and polyethylene capacities by 2016.

The report examines the lack of domestic conversion industries, which absorb around 1% of total petrochemicals output, and the failure of the country to add value and expand the product portfolio to improve petrochemicals margins.

In 2011, Kuwait had ethylene capacity of 1.7mn tonnes per annum (tpa) feeding downstream units that included 825,000tpa LLDPE, according to BMI estimates. It also has 370,000tpa of benzene, 822,000tpa of xylenes, 1mn tpa of EG, 765,000tpa of EO and 160,000tpa of PP capacity. In the fertiliser sector, Kuwait has capacities of 1.04mn tpa urea and 885,000tpa ammonia. Olefins and polyolefins capacities are unlikely to increase before 2016, with the main expansion projects completed in 2009.

The Kuwaiti petrochemicals industry lacks a sufficiently broad product portfolio - notable by its failure to diversify into the purified terephthalic acid-polyethylene terephthalate chain despite sizeable xylenes feedstock availability - and this will mean the country will register a lacklustre performance compared to regional peers in 2012.

Over the last quarter BMI has revised the following forecasts/views:

- BMI has revised Kuwait's petrochemicals rating up by 0.2 points to 60.8 points this quarter, due to an improvement in structural and economic risk scores. It remains in third place, 0.6 points ahead of Qatar and 2.9 points behind the UAE.

- With refinery capacity set to increase, the declining naphtha-ethane differential and the improvement of long-term risks, Kuwait is ripe for investment in diversification, particularly in the PTA-PET chain which can be served by new xylenes capacity.

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/gmj394/kuwait