Supply and demand of light naphtha as potential petrochemical feedstock inSaudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia is a major crude oil producer and exporter. Additionally, with the completion of its master gas gathering and treatment system petrochemi cal industries became the Kingdom's second major industrial sector. Current ly, the Saudi petrochemical industry depends mainly on (C-1) methane and (C -2) ethane components of associated gas (AG) and natural gas (NG) as feedst ocks. A variety of basic petrochemicals are now being produced principally by plants of the Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC). There is a necessity of enhancing the use of various under-utilized hydroca rbon resources. At present, one of the favored under-utilized resources and potential candidates for upgrading is light naphtha (LN). Because LN has t he advantage of producing a more diverse petrochemical product portfolio th an C-1 and C-2 components, it is expected that LN will assume an increasing importance as feedstock in the future development of petrochemical industr ies in Saudi Arabia. However, industrial opportunities for economies of lar ge-scale production of petrochemicals based on LN might not be favored. Saudi Arabia's chemical and petrochemical industrial sector has not yet bee n fully developed, and its production lines are not enough diversified to b enefit from LN. The development and expansion of Saudi petrochemical indust ries usually follows the international trend in this sector, and benefits f rom its technological achievements. Worldwide global shift in the use of fe edstock in this industrial sector will be reflected in the Saudi petrochemi cal industries. As the world trend is to maximize the utilization of under- utilized petroleum resources, one would expect optimization of LN utilizati on in Saudi Arabia in the near future.