Feedstocks are the major drivers of the price of plastics. Whether you are for or against fracking, it has had a dramatic effect on the price of anything derived from natural gas or oil.
Not so long ago, Alan Greenspan expressed concern about depletion of natural gas in the U S. Time was “peak oil” was sacrosanct.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904060604576572552998674340.html The time horizon for peak oil gets pushed farther into the future. Now it’s cool to say “peak demand”. Soon we will have benevolent government control of our electric cars and solar powered airplanes. About a year ago, Cheniere shipped their first order of fracked natural gas to India. Who’d a thunk it ?
Skip ahead to today and we are running out of places to store natural gas thanks to the advent of fracking. As of March 2016 there is over 2.536 trillion cubic feet in storage. The active rig count for oil is down to 315.http://www.plasticsnews.com/headlines2.html?id=25382
So how is this relevant to plastics ? The debate about which feedstock choice for making plastic is sustainable is a hot topic. Many major food companies are against bioplastics because they will drive up the price of their raw materials just as ethanol has driven up the price of protein.
Exxon and Chevron are confident enough about the continuing natural gas discoveries that they have commssioned capital intensive plants which will have a combined annual capacity of over 5 billion pounds. Obviously, the factors of production are most favorable here in the US gulf coast. They plan to make plastic from US natural gas, not oil. Same goes for Braskem who is cranking up grass roots capacity for fossil fuel-derived plastic despite their success with their “green” plastic derived from sugar cane. The common thread is that with the information they had when these plants were commissioned, the US looked like the low cost producer. They made the right call.
The world consumed over 450 billion pounds of plastics in 2011. About 99 % was derived from fossil fuels, though plastics production only accounts for 4% of overall fossil fuel usage. Polyethylene capacity will increase from 324 billion pounds in 2017, growing at a rate of 3.4 %. At the same time, global demand will increase 4.7 %. Much of that demand will be exported from American resin plants in Texas and Louisiana.
The global price of oil is a big factor in determining who has the best price for commodity thermoplastics. If the price of oil drops enough, plastic derived from naptha will be cheaper than plastic derived from natural gas.
For the foreseeable future, most of the market is not ready to pay triple for plant based bioplastics, so plastics from natural gas looks like the most practical choice. Major food companies are waiting for “generation 3″ of bioplastics. They do not want plastic made from agricultural sources because it would raise the price of their raw materials. They have seen what ethanol has done to the price of protein. ” Fossil fuel” plastic is anathema to the focus groups, so they are waiting for a solution which is palatable to the general public that will not raise prices of other commodities.
Fracking will continue to widen the price disparity between fossil fuel plastics and bioplastics. That is, unless the rules change. The Obama administration is issuing a constant stream of regulations with the obvious end game of regulating the frackers out of business. Despite oil and natural gas at an all-time low, the administration wants to implement a $10 per barrel tax on oil. Hillary Clinton has stated that if all her conditions are met, there will be no more fracking.
update January 17, 2017
What a difference a few years makes ! The scale of investment by globocorps in U S resin capacity is staggering. It’s happening not just in the traditional gulf coast, but places like Bartlesville, OK and West Virginia. The reason why is simple: the US is the low cost producer. Note the reference to fracking in this latest announcement of $ 1.7 billion investment in Texas.
update March 18, 2020
Even though the price of oil has collapsed, the price of natural gas has dropped as well. At this writing, NGAS is at $ 1.87 / mmBTU which still favors natural gas. Shell has abandoned the $ 6.5 billion project near Pittsburgh.
Who could have imagined ?
