Refinery-petrochemicals integration: Downstream trends and recommendations for refineries having Petrovietnam’s contributed capital

Crude oil and natural gas are two important feedstocks for petrochemical production worldwide. At present, the domestic production of petroleum and petrochemical products (e.g. from Dung Quat and Nghi Son refineries) is not enough to satisfy the domestic demand. It is forecasted that materials such as plastics (PE, PP, PVC, ABS, PS) and rubers (SBR, NBR) will still have to be imported to meet the development of some potentially sustainable areas such as electric and electronic appliances, automotive, medicals and pharmaceuticals. In this study, petrochemical production is evaluated on the following criteria: (i) Feedstock and product market; (ii) Historical and forecasted prices; (iii) Technology evaluation, and (iv) Trend and experience on crude oil to petrochemicals. Resulting from that, some potential scenarios are proposed for petrochemical productions in Vietnam in the short-/middle- and long-term based on the imported feedstock and domestic supply.