A new technology developed to manufacture Styrene Monomer from ethane could provide an excellent opportunity for Middle East producers. Dow, leading global manufacturer of Styrene and Polystyrene has recently developed a technology to move away from the conventional styrene production process and raw materials, in collaboration with Snamprogetti, an Italian engineering company. This success has been reached after research for more than a decade, and this process, based on proprietary technology, would enable significant cost savings. The significance of this new process would be that producers can take advantage of a much lower cost feedstock - ethane, eliminating the need for upstream investment in ethylene production at a steam cracker.

The conventional route to produce Styrene is in forming ethylbenzene from ethylene and benzene first and then ethyl benzene to styrene. With this new technology, ethane is reacted with benzene to form Styrene directly, thus avoiding a few steps that save costs. Results of a process development unit in operation since late 2002, testing the production process and plant design, have been very encouraging.

This technology will represent a step change in the costs of styrene production and offer greater location flexibility. Dow obviously being the leader of Polystyrene, will exploit this new technology to make Polystyrene more cost competitive. However, the Middle East producers could also be able to utilize the lower cost route because of lower cost of ethane available at their disposal.