One Day – One Country: USA

USA Key Projects and Business Highlights 2014

The development of the shale gas in USA has continued to materialized in 2014 regardless the low prices of the local market around $4 per million BTU.

The producing companies have fully integrated this situation and we assist to a concentration around the most competitive explorers with costs below $1 per million BTU.

On the midstream side the consequences may be measured in miles of projected pipelines to connect the shale gas basins in the north and the center to the liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals and petrochemical complexes concentrated in the southern States of Texas and Louisiana.

This year 2014 is also confirming the boost given by the shale gas to the petrochemical sector in USA.

Only five years ago, the number of petrochemical projects in USA was not representing more than a few percents of the total number of petrochemical projects in the world, but at the end of 2014 we can observe that USA concentrate 19% of the petrochemical projects according to the global projects pursuit tool www.projectsmartexplorer.com.

If this trend is continuing on the same way, whereas the USA intend to restore their manufacturing industry through ambitious projects such as their Industry Renaissance program, this country may concentrate 40% of the petrochemical projects in the world in the next three year dominating by far other regions such as Middle-East and Asia.

The ongoing development of the shale oil on the same path as the shale gas is preaching in that direction causing the stress test engaged with Saudi Arabia on the lowest acceptable crude oil $ barrel price.

If this barrels price war has consequence in hurting the less competitive companies and/or the companies concentrated on the upstream sector, it gives a great help to the groups which balanced their activities upstream and downstream.

In that respect the low price of the oil is boosting the investment on the refining and petrochemical sectors which counter balance the current revision of the non-profitable giant upstream projects.

In US, all the strengths are now pushing in the same way where the declining oil price is gearing up again the momentum taken by the midstream and downstream sectors from the cheap shale gas a couple of years ago.

Sasol and Ineos in JV for Texas LaPorte HDPE project

The Swiss-based Ineos Group AG (Ineos) and the South African petrochemical company Sasol Ltd (Sasol) made the final investment decision (FID) in their joint venture to build a greenfield bimodal high density polyethylene (HDPE) in LaPorte,Texas USA. On early 2013, Sasol had confirmed its intention to move forward two major projects in Lake Charles, Louisiana, USA in order to benefit from the competitive feedstock provided by the shale gas glut.

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GALNG secured land for American Coast LNG Terminal

The Houston-based General American LNG LLNC (GALNG) company is securing land along the US Gulf Coast to build and operate the American Coast liquefied natural gas (LNG) Terminal project.

This American Coast LNG Terminal project is expanding the long list of the already announced LNG production and export facilities planned on the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast.

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BASF and Yara in progress for Freeport ammonia

The German-based chemical leader BASF and the Norwegian nitrogen fertilizers producer Yara International (Yara) have signed an agreement to build a world-scale ammonia plant on the US Gulf Coast. With the largest agriculture in the world, USA is the most strategic market for fertilizers. Anyway the agriculture is using three type of fertilizers: Nitrogen-based fertilizer such as ammonia and urea, Phosphate, and Potash.