Resumen del autor, extraído del trabajo. Annual growth rate of demand for petrochemical basic products such as olefins, aromatics and methanol is expected to be, on average, ca. 4.5% worldwide. This growth amounts to nearly 10.3 million tonnes of additional demand for the basic petrochemicals each year at current rate of consumption. Annual feedstocks required for such growth alone would be ca. 23 million tonnes of which, based on present petrochemical feedstocks pattern, ca. 18.7 million tonnes (or 430,000 B/D) is naphtha. This additional demand for virgin naphtha, which corresponds to 40% of 1.5% crude oil growth forecast for refinery throughput, will cause an inevitable imbalance in supply and demand and hence raising the price of naphtha. Substantial quantities of roughly 10 million barrels of virgin naphtha plus NGL consumed daily as petrochemical feedstocks could be substituted by other suitable feedstocks derived from gas resources. The alternative petrochemical feedstocks include: ethane, propane and butanes. These components are abundantly available in the Persian Gulf region from the vast resources of indigenous rich gas reservoirs. And since export of light HC components, especially methane and ethane, are very costly, they can be converted to basic petrochemicals at very attractive prices compared with petrochemical feedstock prices in other locations including Europe, North America and Far East. It is anticipated that the economic advantages will dictate the future expansion of basic petrochemicals and their intermediates to be concentrated in the Persian Gulf region.