Flooding in Texas, home to a vast chemical
industry. Picture / Bloomberg
Few Americans care about ethylene. Many
have probably never heard of it.
As it turns out, this colourless, flammable
gas is arguably the most important petrochemical on the planet -- and much of
it comes from the hurricane-stricken US Gulf Coast.
Ethylene is one of the big reasons the
damage wrought by Hurricane Harvey is likely to ripple through US manufacturing
of essential items.
"Ethylene really is the major
petrochemical that impacts the entire industry," said Chirag Kothari, an
analyst at consultant Nexant.
Texas alone produces nearly three quarters
of the country's supply of one of the most basic chemical building blocks.
Ethylene is the foundation for making
plastics essential to goods from car parts to nappies.
With Harvey shutting down almost all the
state's plants, 61 per cent of US ethylene capacity has been closed, according
to PetroChemWire.
Ethylene occurs naturally -- it's the gas
given off by fruit as it ripens. But it also lies at the heart of the US$3.5
trillion ($4.9t) global chemical industry.
Processing
plants turn the chemical into polyethylene, the world's most common plastic,
used in rubbish bags and food packaging. When transformed into ethylene glycol,
it's the antifreeze that keeps engines and aircraft wings from freezing, and it
also becomes the polyester used in textiles and water bottles.
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