Future Outlook for Petrochemicals in Saudi Arabia

Jamal J. Malaikah, President and COO of NATPET, talks about the future outlook for petrochemicals in Saudi Arabia.

“I can tell you about our business. In Polypropylene, we are talking about 55 million tons of demand. The supply is a bit higher but that depends on the operating condition of the plants. Supply is higher than demand though. Of course it will be higher with the shale gas products, Chinese products, Brazilian products, GCC products etc. Supply will always be higher than demand. There are a lot of threats, including shale gas, protectionism, new technologies and our distance from the markets. People don’t understand that transporting our products from here to Latin America, the US, Europe etc. is very expensive. The logistics of the supply chain are complex. It is not as simple as people think, they think we just make a lot of money. It’s going to be very tough in the future.”