Analysis and forecast of supply and demand in the Western European petrochemical markets.

Analysis and forecast of Middle East supply/demand and capacity for LLDPE, LDPE, HDPE, and polypropylene including year-end 2001 data. Discussion of future developments for polyolefins and demand forecast within the region.

The chemistry, process technologies, and production economics for acrylamide are assessed. Conventional heterogeneous catalyzed process is compared to the lastest biotransformation route as well as an emerging catalytic distillation process.

The chemistry, process technology, and production economics for the new polymer, polytrimethylene terephthalate is presented. Shell’s petrochemical route to the polymer precursor, PDO, is contrasted to DuPont’s biotech approach.