|
PLASTICS IN THE TWENTIES,
ANTEC, CHICAGO 2004
Françoise Pardos, Pardos Marketing, February 2006
World consumption of plastics and forecasts
The average annual rate of growth of 8.1% that brought all solid
polymers from:
7 million tons in the world in 1960
to 160 million tons in 2000
and to continue reaching over 300 million tons in 2010, 530 million
tons in 2020, using a more conservative annual rate of 6.5 %.
Total world production/consumption of plastics, since the beginning,
at the turn of the twentieth century, kept an average annual rate
of growth of 15 %, or doubling every ten years, until 1975, when
this trend was broken at the first oil shock, this high growth rate
was never achieved again, the average annual growth rate of plastics
was 15% from 1960 to 1974, and 8% thereafter, from 1974 to 2000.
The capacity increases are quite different whether considered in
total or relatively. The increases of capacities are small in the
already industrialized areas. Even though they also are quite high
in Africa, it is not significant as they are on a much smaller base,
and to stay small. Middle East and Asia Pacific are the leading areas
in new commodity plastics capacities, with heavy investment into
new crackers, in Iran, in the Persian Gulf, in China, mainly.
Sources
All Pardos Marketing estimates from many sources and data bases.
All figures and comments come from multi-client study, the World
Plastics Trilogy, Plastics Supply, Consumption/Applications, Converting
Industries and Strategies of world players.
Table 1. Capacity of commodity plastics, in thousands
of tons
| West Europe |
42 000 |
3 200 |
7.6 |
| C & E Europe |
9 400 |
8 200 |
87.2 |
| North America |
55 200 |
4 900 |
8.9 |
| South America |
10 300 |
3 900 |
37.9 |
| Middle East |
10 300 |
15 200 |
147.6 |
| Africa |
3 200 |
1 600 |
50.0 |
| Asia Pacific |
76 300 |
35 900 |
47.0 |
Table2. World production / consumption of plastics, long term 1960-2020
| Commodity |
7000 |
60000 |
155000 |
287000 |
510000 |
8% |
6.15% |
| Engineering |
50 |
900 |
4500 |
12000 |
24500 |
12% |
8.8% |
| Specialty |
3 |
40 |
170 |
400 |
1100 |
11% |
9.8% |
| Composites |
0 |
1 |
80 |
200 |
500 |
23% |
9.6% |
Table 3. Plastics consumption by major areas, in thousands of tons
| Europe W, C, E |
40 000 |
87 000 |
4 |
| Eurasia, Russia & others |
4 000 |
19 000 |
8 |
| North America |
45 000 |
98 000 |
4 |
| Latin America |
11 000 |
42 000 |
7 |
| Middle East, incl. TR |
4 000 |
18 000 |
8 |
| Africa, North & South |
2 500 |
10 000 |
7 |
| Other Africa |
500 |
1 000 |
4 |
| China |
19 000 |
153 000 |
11 |
| India |
4 000 |
38 000 |
12 |
| Japan |
11 000 |
16 000 |
2 |
| Other Asia Pacific, rest |
13 000 |
60 000 |
8 |
*Average annual rate of growth
back to the top of the page
|
|
