Overview
FGE'sNaphtha Outlook provides a detailed summary and assessment of the mid- to long-term outlook for naphtha trade, with a breakdown of export supply by grade and import demand by sector. This is accompanied by an extensive dataset created from the bottom up to provide you with trade-centric country-by-country supply and demand balances.
The complexity of the naphtha market stems from it being classified both as a refined product and as an NGL, its numerous different grades, and its position as an intermediary product with a variety of different uses. With expertise across the oil, refining and natural gas industries, FGE is perfectly placed to untangle the complexities that exist within this often opaque market.
On the petrochemical front, the lighter cuts of naphtha compete with LPG for a place in the olefins complex. Meanwhile the heavier cuts of naphtha are absorbed by reformers and eventually ending up in a different form either the gasoline blend pool or the value chain of aromatic petrochemicals.
Many look at naphtha as a single product, but in reality the physical trade of naphtha is a world of its own – with different grades more suited to a specific end use and a market dynamic that is difficult to fully grasp without some inside knowledge.
Accounting for this is tricky. Naphtha can also be an intermediate product that can be used directly as gasoline blendstock, as a splitter or refinery feed to produce different grades of naphtha – hence a special approach is required to really understand the balances and nuances of the naphtha market.
The Naphtha Outlook report uses a bottom-up approach to construct port-by-port and grade-by-grade export supply of naphtha. This is then compared with the import demand for naphtha by sector.
Drawing across FGE’s in-house expertise in the crude oil, refining and gas space, balances are developed based on refining, petrochemical capacity and margin expectations, alongside feedstock selection dynamics within the petrochemical space. In our upstream analysis, increasing NGL supplies from key regions globally are taken into account.