Overview
FGE’s detailed assessment of the mid- to long-term outlook for naphtha trade provides a comprehensive breakdown of export supply of naphtha by grade as well as import demand of naphtha by sector. The study seeks to see the key pushes and pulls between the different types of naphtha alongside the overall trade balance of naphtha globally.
The naphtha markets house certain dynamics that are difficult to untangle. It is a refined product that is also at the behest of the NGL production dynamic.
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.