Petro & Commodity

Base chemicals and petrochemicals are the foundation stones of the North East England’s economy generating £5bn and employing 14,000 people all on Teesside. This region is a significant global location for this business activity and boasts the UK’s largest integrated petrochemical facility and the second largest in Europe. These industries take the basic raw materials of minerals, water, oil and gas and transform them into basic building blocks of the Process Industry such as Synthesis Gas, Ethylene, Hydrogen, Ammonia, Hydrocarbons, Petrochemicals and Fuels. Major companies in the region include BP, Conoco Phillips, Sabic, BOC, Huntsman, Petroplus, BASF and Sembcorp etc. The products produced by these companies underpin our modern lifestyles. They make the materials that we as a society demand in our every day lives; such as fuels for our homes and cars; polymers for constructing our homes, vehicles, clothes and furnishings; paints & coatings, electronic chemicals, agrochemicals, fertilizers, flavours, fragrance and pharmaceuticals. Indeed there is no part of our modern life that these materials do not touch.

This vast industrial sector is the UK’s last remaining net exporter and contrary to popular perception the chemical industry is continuing to grow. March 2007 was the sector’s largest ever sales month, in terms of volume and price, with sales of around £70bn and our exports exceeding £32bn.

There are only a few locations in the world where these materials are made because such huge quantities are handled that there is a need for a significant infrastructure of power stations, pipelines, and storage & port facilities. Down-stream users of these materials such as polymer and fertilizer manufacturers co-locate with these industries in order to receive their raw materials directly through pipelines. The sector has seen some changes over the last year with Huntsman selling its substantial Petrochemical assets to Sabic and now its polyurethane, aromatics and titanium dioxide businesses are the subject of a take over as we go to publication. AdvanSA announced a name change to Artenius while it also closed down an old and uncompetitive PTA plant at Wilton. On the other hand SABIC are pushing on with a world scale investment into polyethylene and are considering building a new world scale polypropylene facility.

NEPIC works closely with One North East, Renew Tees Valley, Tees Valley Regeneration and CPI to attract new companies to the region and there have been many well publicised recent successes from this combined effort. Companies already in the region are changing and adapting to the market and making massive investments to meet and society’s future demands.