据油价网2020年4月15日报道，业内知情分析人士日前表示，虽然美国页岩产量下降是油价暴跌造成的直接后果，但低油价已经在能源市场引发了一系列事件，这将不可避免地影响美国石油化工行业的供应链。
英国调查公司IHS Markit在其最近的一份分析报告中表示，由于油价暴跌，石化产品供应链可能正在陷入困难境地。
专家和美国能源信息署(EIA)表示，美国石油产量下降将导致产油井的伴生天然气产量下降，从而导致今年剩余时间美国每月天然气产量下降。
然后，美国天然气产量的下降也将打击天然气液体的产量，包括乙烷、丙烷、丁烷和天然汽油，这些都是石油化工部门的重要原料或用于取暖和烹饪的燃料。例如，乙烷和丙烷是用于生产塑料和树脂化合物石化产品的关键原料。
根据EIA汇编的统计数据，随着页岩气近几年来的蓬勃发展，美国油田的天然气液体日产量也创下了500多万桶的历史新高。
IHS Markit中游石油和天然气液体集团主管维拉尔·梅赫塔表示，在过去两年中，天然气液体产量在2017年至2019年期间大幅增长了27%。
就在3个月前，分析师们还在预计美国的天然气液体产量今明两年将继续增长。去年12月，业内资深分析人士告诉NGI的《页岩日报》，在石油导向钻井作业中扩大和增长管道天然气液体输送能力将在2020年推动美国天然气液体产量的增长。
在疫情爆发之前，IHS Markit曾预计美国天然气液体产量将继续过去两年的强劲增长，到2021年将增长近19%。
然而，疫情影响导致的需求锐减引发了油价暴跌和欧佩克+组织打起价格战，其结果是WTI原油价格跌至每桶20美元以及美国石油和天然气产量下降。
现在，IHS Markit预计未来两年美国天然气液体的总产量将或多或少持平。
IHS Markit的梅赫塔日前曾表示：“然而，考虑到美国和(尤其是)全球对天然气液体的需求预计在未来两年内仍将增长，美国天然气液体‘重置’可能会给石化供应链带来麻烦。”
EIA在其最新的4月短期能源展望报告中预计，美国天然气厂液体燃料产量将从今年第一季度的每天512万桶下降至明年第一季度的每天473万桶，然后在明年第一季度以后开始增长。
根据能源数据分析公司Enverus的统计数据，在低油价的预期中，美国天然气液体产量在2021年将下降。
能源咨询公司伍德麦肯兹表示，天然气液体供应是继炼油厂供应之后的第二个与能源连接的关键原料。伍德麦肯兹分析师在4月初的一篇评论文章中称，短期天然气液体供应比炼厂供应更为强劲，但北美上游部门的资本支出削减“将在中期内直接影响石化买家”。拥有最大原料灵活性的资产将处于最佳位置。
伍德麦肯兹分析师们指出，“冻结的经济活动和不稳定的原料价格将对‘石化行业’产生直接而巨大的影响”。
所有这些预测都表明，过去两个月石油市场发生的戏剧性事件将影响全球能源行业的每一个角落。
李峻 编译自 油价网
原文如下：
Oil Price Crash Is Upending The Petrochemicals Industry
While the U.S. shale production decline is the immediate outcome of the price collapse, low crude oil prices have triggered a chain of events in the energy markets that will inevitably impact the supply chain of the petrochemicals industry, analysts say.
There could be trouble brewing in the petrochemicals supply chain because of the oil price collapse, IHS Markit said in a recent analysis.
The lower U.S. oil production will lead to lower associated natural gas production from oil-directed wells, resulting in monthly declines in U.S. natural gas production through the rest of the year, according to experts and the Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Then the decline in U.S. natural gas production will also hit the production of natural gas liquids (NGLs) — ethane, propane, butanes, and natural gasoline – which are used as feedstocks for the petrochemicals sector or burned for heating and cooking. Ethane and propane, for example, are key feedstocks for petrochemicals used for producing compounds to manufacture plastics and resins.
In lockstep with the shale gas boom in recent years, U.S. field production of NGLs has surged to record highs of more than 5 million barrels per day (bpd), as per EIA data.
Over the past two years, NGLs production jumped by 27 percent between 2017 and 2019, said Veeral Mehta, director on the Midstream Oil and Natural Gas Liquids (NGL) group at IHS Markit.
Just three months ago, analysts expected that America’s NGLs production would continue to grow this year and next. Expanding pipeline NGL capacity and growth in oil-directed drilling were set to push U.S. production of NGLs higher in 2020, analysts told NGI’s Shale Daily in December 2019.
Before the coronacrisis, IHS Markit expected that U.S. NGL production would continue its strong growth from the past two years and rise almost 19 percent by 2021.
However, the coronavirus pandemic triggered the oil price crash and the OPEC+ family drama, the result of which is WTI Crude at $20 per barrel and lower oil and natural gas production in the U.S.
And now IHS Markit expects total U.S. NGLs production to be more or less flat over the next two years.
“However, given that US and (especially) global demand for NGLs is still forecast to grow in the next two years, this US NGL "reset" could spell trouble for the petrochemical supply chain,” IHS Markit’s Mehta wrote last week.
In its latest Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) for April, the EIA sees natural gas plant liquids production in the U.S. dropping from 5.12 million bpd in Q1 2020 to 4.73 million bpd in Q1 2021, before starting to grow after the first quarter of 2021.
According to energy data analytics company Enverus, U.S. NGLs production is set to decline over the next year amid expectations of low oil prices.
Energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie says that NGLs supply is the second key energy-linked feedstock after refinery supplies. Short-term NGLs supply is more robust than refinery supplies, WoodMac analysts said in an opinion piece at the beginning of April.
Short-term NGLs supply may be more robust, but the capital expenditure (capex) cuts in North America’s upstream sector “will directly affect petrochemical buyers in the medium term. Assets with the most feedstock flexibility will be best positioned,” Wood Mackenzie said.
“Frozen economic activity and volatile feedstock pricing will both have an immediate and dramatic impact” on the petrochemicals sector, the analysts noted.
All these projections show that the dramatic events in the oil market over the past two months will affect every corner of the global energy industry.
