Ethane supplier to the world

Abstract

In 2016, chemical companies built navies. European chemical makers Ineos and Borealis have already christened ships that will carry ethane from the U.S. to their ethylene crackers in Europe. India’s Reliance Industries is taking delivery on a fleet of six so-called very large ethane carriers, which will be the biggest ships of their kind in the world, each with nearly 90,000 m3 of storage capacity. The shale revolution has driven down U.S. natural gas prices. Today, on an energy content basis, natural gas is only one-third the price of oil. And a lot more ethane is being produced than the current stable of U.S. ethylene crackers can consume. Most of the excess is being left in natural gas and burned as fuel. The U.S. chemical industry has about a dozen ethylene projects in the works to gobble up a good chunk of the excess ethane. Foreign chemical makers want the