Polyolefins continue to beat global economic growth

Polyolefins have several key applications in various sectors such as packaging, automotive, household products, electronic appliances, etc which constitute a significant part of the common economy. They are therefore governed by the general economic parameters. The global economy in 2001 was severely affected by a slowdown in USA, the world's largest economy. Polyolefins interestingly have withstood the dismal economic conditions mainly due to good growth in Asia, with Europe contributing in the overall growth by nullifying the negative growth recorded in North America to a great extent.

Several global Polyolefins reports from various well renown consulting organisations have brought about the Polyolefins consumption in 2001 as:

Polyolefins at 84 million tonnes have a 63% share of the commonly used plastics that include PVC, Styrenics and PET containers.
Polyethylenes at 54 million tonnes have a 40% share of the commonly used plastics.
PP has a 23% share.

Small wonder that Polyolefins have a significant impact on the plastics. 2001 was indeed a very difficult year for Polyolefins and plastics. North America, the largest consumer of plastics affected the overall growth siginificantly in 2001. Despite this, Polyolefins have beaten the global GDP growth in 2001.
LLDPE and PP have continued to show very healthy growth in the last 5 years. LLDPE possibly has been growing at the expense of LDPE. Infact LDPE is either shrinking or stagnating at the level of 16-17 million tonnes in the last few years. Even the stronghold of European market is slowly yielding to LLDPE. The Asian as well North American markets now have much higher share of LLDPE compared to LDPE.

Interestingly HDPE has continued to show good growth mainly due to blow moulding, pipes and film applications. Infact most of the consultants forecast HDPE to grow at 6% for the next five years. PP, of course due to its wider utilization and ability to replace other materials quite effectively, is expected to show at least 6% growth in the next five years. These Polyolefins are likely to grow to 110 million tonnes from the level of 84 million tonnes indicating an average growth of 5.5% until 2006.

All Polyolefins have larger production capacities compared to their demand. PE capacity in 2001 was 66 million tonnes while PP capacity was 38 million tonnes. The overall capacity of Polyolefins was 104 million tonnes against the consumption of 84 million tonnes indicating capacity utilization of just about 80-81%. The capacity is expected to be increased by 23 million tonnes in the period between 2001 and 2006. The capacity breakdown given below brings about some interesting points.