Refining and Petrochemical Sectors Growing Rapidly in the Middle East and North Africa

摘要

After having been the poor relations of oil investments for many decades,the refining and petrochemical sectors are undergoing a phenomenal expansion in the oil-producing countries of the Middle East and North Africa.The reasons for this change of course vary from one country to another,but they mostly have to do with the sharp rise in world oil prices and in exporting countries' revenues since the war in Iraq in 2003,the faster-than-expected growth in world oil demand,the saturation of refining capacity in a large number of consuming countries,and the determination of producing countries to take advantage of the added value and economies of scale afforded by industrial activities downstream from oil and gas production.In addition,there has been the rapid growth in the domestic requirements of producing countries themselves,as well as the reluctance displayed by leading IOCs,which bore the brunt of the over-capacity brought about by the massive investments that poured into refining in the 1970s.Altogether,the capital required for refining and petrochemical projects in the Arab countries and Iran over the 2007-2011 period are estimated by Apicorp at 173.39 billion,representing an average of 34.7 billion per annum.That is equivalent to fully 52% of the total investments expected to be devoted to the hydrocarbon industry in these countries over that period,as against,by comparison,52.98 billion (15.9%) for the upstream oil sector and 41.11 billion (12.3%) for the upstream gas industry (AOG,16 May,2007).