Consumption of ethane has grown every year since 2010 in the US, and more ethane is now consumed in the country than either jet fuel or propane, said EIA on its site.
Consumption of ethane, which the EIA estimates using product supplied, grew by 50,000 bpd in 2021, according to data from its March 2022 Petroleum Supply Monthly. The EIA forecasts that by 2023, US consumption of ethane will grow by another 340,000 bpd.
Annual US ethane consumption has increased in every year since 2010 because demand for ethane as a petrochemical feedstock has grown. Ethane mainly serves as a petrochemical feedstock to produce ethylene, which is used to make plastics and resins.
Domestic ethane consumption over the past two years has increased due to increased ethylene cracking capacity. In contrast, consumption of most other petroleum products has decreased these past two years as a result of less travel during the COVID-19 pandemic.
US ethane consumption grew in 2021 despite the mid-February winter storm on the US Gulf Coast, which took more than one-third of US ethylene cracking capacity offline. Because about 90% of US ethane consumption is concentrated along the Gulf Coast, storm disruptions reduced ethane consumption by 655,000 bpd in February 2021. Despite this drop, the additional capacity from two new ethylene crackers during the second half of 2021 contributed to an overall increase in ethane consumption in 2021.
The EIA expects U.S. ethane consumption to average 2.1 MMbpd in both 2022 and 2023 because another ethylene cracker was recently completed in Monaca, Pennsylvania, which will add an estimated 96,000 bpd of ethane feedstock capacity, and existing ethylene crackers should operate at higher utilization rates.
As MRC informed before, in March 2022, the EIA projected that US energy consumption will grow through 2050, primarily driven by population and economic growth. In this case, which reflects only current laws and regulations, renewable energy is the fastest-growing energy source through 2050, and petroleum remains the largest share of energy consumption throughout that period, followed by natural gas.
Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,487,450 tonnes in 2021, up by 13% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market totalled 1,494.280 tonnes, up by 21% year on year. Deliveries of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased, whreas.shipments of PP random copolymers decreased significantly.
MRC