Petrochemicals

Petrochemicals are created from oil and natural gas and in turn are used in the creation of a variety of products such as plastics, polystyrene cups, textile products, and even fertilizers. Some of these products are specific to industries and others for everyday use.

Canada has two of the world’s biggest petrochemicals complexes in Alberta, at Fort Saskatchewan and Joffre, and others in Sarnia, Ontario, and Montréal, Québec. Seven major companies, most of which are Canadian and American, own these facilities. Most of these facilities are in close proximity to other industries that either supply or use byproducts to or from the petrochemicals complexes. Pipelines and rails are the preferred method of transport for incoming and outgoing materials, though Keltic will do so by ship.

According to Industry Canada, most of the products are exported, with the USA receiving the huge majority of Canadian production. Competition in Asia is making it harder to keep a hold of our market there. The future competitiveness of this industry will depend on the efficiency of the facilities and the availability of cheap supply of sufficient amounts of oil and gas. Current oil and gas supplies in the Atlantic are not sufficient and therefore the provision of a petrochemical complex in this region will depend on importation of foreign sources, such as LNG. In turn foreign supplies, like LNG, depend strongly on international markets and politics. The trend in international markets is to invest in new petrochemical complexes that are closer to the source, like the Middle East.

In the years to come, governments and industry will have to make choices regarding how much oil and gas will be used to make petrochemicals, and how much will be left to heat our homes and cook our meals. Dependence on non-renewable resources, such as oil and gas, for both the Energy and the Petrochemicals industries means eventually both will run out of their supply if governments and industry do not invest in renewable alternatives. Heavy dependence on fossil fuels is also a major cause of global warming.