Gaseous Feedstocks - Production and Price

In this chapter we discuss the methods of production, costs of production, transport and price of the gaseous feedstocks used to produce chemicals. The feedstocks of interest fall into two groups - those produced as by-products of large-scale natural gas developments for pipeline gas or LNG, and those produced from crude oU. 

The first group comprise the natural gas liquids (NGLs), ethane, propane and butanes. The latter two are often referred to as a LPG and are often sold as a mixture. These feedstocks are of major interest as primary feedstock for petrochemical operations for cracking into ethylene and propylene. Liquids produced from natural gas processing are often referred to as condensate or natural gasoline. Such liquids are used in both petrochemical and reefing operations and their use as a feedstock is discussed in the next chapter. 

The second group comprise LPG feedstocks made from crude oil. These are products of refinery and petrochemical operations processing heavier feeds such as gas oil and vacuum gas oil and residual fuel oils. These LPG streams contain materials of direct interest to petrochemical operations for further processing to other chemicals. With suitable treatment (hydrogenation) they can be used as cracker feedstock or sold to other users as an energy fuel. 

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