Saudi Arabia to continue to lead GCC chemical industry next decade: GPCA

The GCC chemical industry is projected to grow by 3.4 percent per year over the next decade (2017-2027), driven by investment activity on the back of rising export demand, the Gulf Petrochemicals and Chemicals Association (GPCA) noted in its report released today.

In Saudi Arabia, the heartbeat of the GCC chemical industry, the forecast for production capacity is expected to continue to rise at a rate of 2.7 percent per year to 147.5 million tons by 2027, the report added.

In the short term, Saudi Arabia is expected to add 3 percent of production capacity in 2019, reaching 120.8 million tons.

The second growth country is Oman which will account for 18 percent of total capacity addition between 2017 and 2027.

"This will help Oman to increase its regional share from the current 6 percent by 4 percentage points by 2027 when the country’s production capacity will reach 22.4 million tons," it noted.

The GCC’s share in global petrochemical capacity has more than doubled since 2000 to 6.6 percent in 2017, GPCA report added.