The Chemical & Petrochemicals Industry for Non-Technical Personnel

Introduction:

This training course focuses on simplifying the complicated, technical business of Petrochemicals. The course will review the elementary Carbon-based, Organic Chemistry to help with understanding. Very basic Chemical structures and process chemistry necessary for understanding the industry will be discussed. Production processes and some of the equipment used are covered. Along with the business, value chains, and industrial production of basic, top-selling Chemicals and Petrochemicals.

The training course will navigate through feedstocks, such as crude oil and gas, through olefinic feedstock processing to polymer manufacturing as the finished consumer product as they are used in the end markets. Historical and future industry direction and developments will be explored to provide real-life context

Targeted Groups:

• Sales Personnel with a Petrochemical Portfolio
• Market Analysts
• Chemical Plants Professionals
• Petrochemicals & Refinery Professionals
• Customer Care Representatives
• Business Development Personnel
• Procurement Managers
• Senior Customer Care Representatives

Course Objectives:

At the end of this course the participants will be able to:

• Apply acquired knowledge of the basic organization for this Industry
• Understand the wide-ranging business of Petrochemicals
• Learn how to be familiar with the Seven building blocks for Petrochemicals
• Have a full understanding of the rapid growth and importance of Petrochemicals
• Explain the benefits to customers and colleagues of the Petrochemicals business

Targeted Competencies:

• Basics of commercial production of Petrochemicals
• Key Market players and size
• Economic aspects of the feedstocks and building blocks
• A more consumer-focused view of entire Petrochemical value chains
• Downstream associated petrochemicals markets

Course Content:
Unit 1: Introduction:

• Petrochemicals Gas and Petroleum
• Basic Organic Chemistry
• The natural gas/shale gas revolution
• Where does Coal fit in the strategy?
• Processes and Equipment
• Crude oil, refining, integration with Petrochemical plants
• Market growth and industry costs
• The Petrochemicals Business
• The origins and history of the industry
• What makes the industry unique?
• Costs, Margins and Prices
• Evaluation of the Major Players
• Strategies employed by the major players
• Industry Profitability
• Ethylene and Propylene markets

Unit 2: The Petrochemical Value Chains:

• Natural, Shale and Stranded Gas
• Sources of Gas
• Supply and demand
• Costs and pricing
• The C1 Value Chain and derivatives
• Olefin Economics
• Steam Cracker Margins
• Feedstock costs and their impact on ethylene cost
• Differences in costs and margins between producing regions
• The dynamics of petrochemical feedstocks
• Refining and gas separation
• Olefins – Costs, Margins, Consumption and Investment
• An introduction to Polyolefins
• Aromatics Sources, Business and Technologies
• Sources of aromatics
• Supply and demand
• Costs and pricing
• Styrene – routes to manufacture

Unit 3: Ethylene and Propylene Fundamentals:

• The business of Ethylene
• Feedstocks to produce Ethylene
• Detailed investigation of major Ethylene Derivatives
• The Future for Ethylene
• Propylene
• The business of Propylene
• How the Propylene shortage was fixed
• Detail of propylene derivatives   
• What the future holds

Unit 4: C4 Derivatives and Introduction to Aromatics:

• Butylene and Butadiene Fundamentals
• What are C4 molecules
• How are they made and separated?
• What they are used for
• Business Structure
• What the future holds
• Aromatics
• The Aromatics business
• Sources and production methods
• Focus on Benzene Toluene and Xylene
• Markets and Applications

Unit 5: The Polymers Business and Course Conclusions:

• Plastics
• What are they and how are they made?
• Methods of manufacture
• Polymer types
• Key properties
• Polymer Markets and Applications
• Polyethylene Fundamentals
• LDPE, HDPE and LLDPE, what are they
• How they are made
• What they are used for
• Margins and consumption
• Business Structure
• Polypropylene Fundamentals
• What is polypropylene?
• How is it made?
• What it is used for?
• Margins and consumption
• Business Structure
• What the future holds
• Polymers to Products
• The properties of finished products
• The role of the Processor
• Markets and Applications
• Green Polyolefins, towards a sustainable future with Polymers