Outlook For Propylene Availability in Asia-Pacific

High demand for propylene derivatives led to widespread speculation about a forthcoming propylene shortage, especially in the Asia-Pacific region. Since the early 1990s, several countries in this region have decreased their dependence on traditional propylene sources (namely ethylene production) by installing propane dehydrogenation units and/or deep catalytic cracking (DCC) units. DCC is a modified fluid catalytic cracker (FCC) operation using customized catalyst. This study indicates that recovering untapped FCC propylene could enable many Asia-Pacific countries to become self-sufficient without further proliferation of the on-purpose operations.