Five characteristics and four trends of the development of the global chemical industry

Five features:

(1) Industrial development is cyclical

(2) Diversified sources of raw materials

(3) High-end downstream demand

(4) The development model tends to be large-scale and integrated

(5) Industrial clusters gradually move closer to upstream raw materials and downstream markets

Four major trends:

(1) Industrial structure: accelerated adjustment

(2) Corporate trends: business focus and merger and reorganization

(3) Driving force: innovation-driven and green driven

(4) Digital revolution: Deep integration with information technology

Global industry has five characteristics

1. Industrial development is cyclical

The global chemical industry is a part of the global economic development, and the periodicity of economic development is enveloping the global chemical industry. In recent years, the global economic growth has slowed down, and the chemical industry has gradually slowed down. The development of emerging economies such as China and India has continued to promote the global chemical industry to maintain a certain development trend in the past few years. In the future, these economies will continue to promote the chemical market with a large population base and strong domestic demand growth momentum. In addition to the impact of the geopolitical characteristics of the Middle East, the shale gas industry in the United States in developed countries has become the biggest variable in recent years, driving the strong development of the American chemical industry.

2. Diversified sources of raw materials

The global chemical landscape is constantly evolving, both on the supply side and on the demand side. At present, petrochemical industry is still the leading industry of modern chemical industry. However, with the continuous breakthrough of key technologies, the alternative route of coal and biomass resources as raw materials has gradually become competitive with oil raw materials in cost, and at the same time, American shale gas (oil) has impacted the global petrochemical production system, and has also had an important impact on the international chemical industry pattern. The diversification of raw materials in chemical industry has become the development status of chemical industry.

3 High-end downstream demand

Major downstream industries such as energy, transportation, construction, medicine, and information industry have put forward more requirements for new products, new performance, and new applications for the chemical industry, and the energy, information, and transportation industries have combined and penetrated with the chemical industry, promoting the improvement of the process, equipment, integration and intelligence level of the chemical industry. At the same time, the real living standard and the future demand for further improvement of the quality of life will bring more diversified and higher quality new development direction to chemical products. These will promote the global chemical industry to continue to move forward.

4. The development model tends to be large-scale and integrated

After several years of great changes, large-scale mergers and acquisitions in the global chemical industry cooled down. In the world, there has been a giant competitive pattern of integrated petroleum and petrochemical companies represented by ExxonMobil, specialized chemical companies represented by BASF, and three types of multinational group companies that have shifted from basic chemicals to modern biotechnology chemicals, such as Kedihua and Bayer (including Monsanto). These companies have occupied absolute competitive advantages in the corresponding fields. In the future, the scale of mergers and acquisitions or divestitures will be reduced but will not stop, and the cumulative number of professional transformation cases will gradually increase. At the same time, with the continuous progress of process technology, engineering technology and equipment manufacturing technology, the global petrochemical equipment has accelerated to large-scale and large-scale development. In addition, the refining and chemical integration technology is becoming more and more mature, the industrial chain continues to extend, and the construction of the base has become inevitable, and the chemical park has become the main mode of industrial development.

5. Industrial clusters gradually move closer to upstream raw materials and downstream markets

Western developed countries retain the development of high-tech chemical industry, and the production of energy-intensive and labor-intensive bulk chemical products has gradually transferred from Western Europe and North America to the Asia-Pacific, Latin America, the Middle East and Eastern Europe, and the proportion of North America and Western Europe in the world petrochemical market has gradually declined. The Middle East (including the Gulf states and Iran) is one of the fastest growing regions in the chemical industry in recent years, the Middle East in the rapid expansion of capacity, but also began to extend the development of downstream petrochemical products. In recent years, the large amount of shale gas exploitation in North America has made ethylene downstream products in North America have obvious price advantages, leading many petrochemical companies to return to the United States.