ABSTRACT
Data herein cited are based on ‘What the Petrochemical Industry Should Be, from an Industrial Structural Point of View’, edited by Chemical Management Research Institute (7 December 1984).
It was in 1958 that the petrochemical industry was set up in Japan and operations commenced. In the USA, petrochemical products reached a quarter of the total chemical production in 1950. In the Western European countries, a number of petrochemical plants had already been constructed by 1955. Nevertheless, Japanese petrochemical industries have made remarkably rapid progress. Since 1965, Japan has ranked second in the world in terms of ethylene production (see Figure 10.1).
