Thank you for the kind introduction, and congratulations to the organizers of ANIQ for completing another very successful annual forum. Today, I am going to discuss Wood Mackenzie s view about the opportunities for the Mexican petrochemical industry Before I begin, I would like to first provide an introduction to Wood Mackenzie 1
For the past 40 years, Wood Mackenzie has become the global leader in commercial intelligence for the natural resources sector across the oil, gas, power, chemicals, metals and mining sectors We deliver research and consulting projects based on our forecasts for the markets, assets, companies in these sectors We have over 900 clients that we serve from nearly 30 offices around the world Wood Mackenzie s unique approach is based on our proprietary databases and forecasting tools that provide an integrated view across the entire energy to petrochemical value chain. 2
Opportunities apparent across this value chain of energy to petrochemicals to the broader economy will the theme of my presentation today. The strongest petrochemical industries will be in countries that have a strong base hydrocarbon industry (crude oil, natural gas, and coal) and a strong economy. Therefore, I will spend a significant amount of time discussing Mexico s capabilities in each part of this value chain in my presentation. I will answer these key questions about the Mexican petrochemical industry: How does Mexico s petrochemical industry compare globally? How does Energy Reform and Shale Gas change hydrocarbon supplies? What growth factors in the Mexican economy impact demand prospects for the petrochemical industry? What are the opportunities & ideal examples for future petrochemical industry growth in Mexico? 3
To address this question of how does Mexico s petrochemical industry compare globally to other countries of the world, the graphic on the left side of this chart represents the 30 countries with the largest petrochemical industries (as measured by production capacity of the major base petrochemicals of ethylene, propylene, benzene, and paraxylene the petrochemicals that are the key building blocks of most polymers, synthetic fibers, and other petrochemical end-uses) As expected, China and the US have the largest petrochemical industries in the world, mainly because they have the largest sources of hydrocarbons and largest economies compared to any other countries. Mexico has the 26 th largest petrochemical industry in the world. Since a viable source of hydrocarbon for feedstock is critical to the success of a petrochemical industry, the right graphic shows the 30 countries with the largest energy industries (as measured by production of crude oil, natural gas, and coal). In terms of hydrocarbon production, Mexico is the 14 th largest producer in the world, compared to being the 26 th largest petrochemical producer in the world. A total of 15 countries have a petrochemical industry larger than Mexico but have hydrocarbon production less than Mexico as shown by the red stars on the list on the left graphic. Therefore, Mexico certainly has potential to grow its petrochemical industry further, even with existing hydrocarbon production. 4
On this page, I repeat the left side of this chart that represents the 30 countries with the largest petrochemical industries, but now I compare this with the 30 countries with the largest economies as shown on the right chart. Since a strong economy is critical to the success of a petrochemical industry, the right graphic shows the 30 countries with the largest economic output (as measured by the World Bank). Again, as expected, China and the US have the largest petrochemical industries in the world, mainly because they have the largest sources of hydrocarbons and largest economies compared to any other countries. In terms of economic output, Mexico is the 13th largest economy in the world, compared to being the 26th largest petrochemical producer in the world. A total of 13 countries have a petrochemical industry larger than Mexico but have an economy smaller than Mexico as shown by the red stars on the list on the left graphic. Therefore, Mexico certainly has potential to grow its petrochemical industry further, even with the existing size of the economy. 5
As the previous 2 slides showed, Mexico certainly has potential for a larger petrochemical industry in the future, relative to the existing size of hydrocarbon production and the existing size of the overall economy. Let us first talk about the Mexico s hydrocarbon-related opportunities to grow the petrochemical industry, specifically, how Mexico s Energy Reform and North America s Shale Gas revolution will provide new opportunities for the Mexican petrochemical industry. 6
Mexico has been commercially producing crude oil since the early 1900 s, and at one time during the 1920 s, Mexico produced almost 25% of the world s crude oil supplies. Throughout the next 50 years, Mexico s oil production increased and decreased but never reached over a 1 million barrels per day, until the start up of the Cantarell field in the late 1970 s, which has been the main source of production for Mexico over the past 3 decades. Unfortunately, Cantarell s production peaked in 2004 and Mexico s total crude oil production has been on the decline ever since this time due to lack of reinvestment in developing oil reserves. The recent Energy Reform efforts are designed to reverse this decline in total crude oil production and ultimately increase revenues associated with Mexico s vast reserves of crude oil. After the Mexico Constitution was amended in December 2013, Secondary legislation was enacted in August 2014 with more specific changes, Mexico is now attracting private investment capital and technology into the oil sector though various auction rounds where private companies are initially investing in the development of shallow water oil fields during the first auctions and then some smaller on-shore oil & gas production later this year. Only after some of the more prolific deep water fields are auctioned and developed in later years, will there be significant potential for new oil production. Despite stated long-term goals of returning crude oil production back above the previous peak levels of 3.5 million barrels per day, Wood Mackenzie forecasts that these new Energy Reform efforts will mostly off-set depletion in existing fields to keep production relatively flat for the next 10 years. 7
As part of Energy Reform, private companies are now permitted to directly participate in the refining sector, which was formerly exclusively for PEMEX and its subsidiaries. PEMEX currently has 6 refineries in operation totaling 1.7 million barrels per day. However, Mexico has the largest gasoline deficit in the Americas. Despite forecasts for growing product demand leading to larger deficits, it is unlikely that a new refinery will be built by the end of the decade Low refinery margins, high investment costs, and proximity to growing product supply from the US Gulf Coast will initially discourage new refinery investments Investments in the existing refineries with deeper conversion capabilities, reduced fuel costs, and increased operational efficiency will yield some increases in throughput and profitability Over the next 3 to 5 years, the transition to free market pricing of petroleum products will ultimately make the refining industry more attractive to private investors There is one aromatics modernization project under study in La Congrejera that could increase paraxylene capacity near the end of this decade. But, any additional investments in oil and refinery based petrochemical value chains (such as propylene, benzene, and paraxylene), will be limited during the rest of this decade until there is growth in refining capacity. 8
As shown on the graphic on the left, Mexico currently domestically produces about 40% of natural gas supply; imports about 50% by pipeline from the US; and imports the balance via 3 LNG terminals. Most natural gas demand is for generating power, and power will be the largest growth sector for the future. Most focus of the Energy Reform s exploration and production goals have been primarily related to increasing crude oil production, in part due to the currently poor economics on lower potential revenues associated with natural gas production. Domestically produced natural gas supplies are expected to stay relatively flat for the next 10 years, as new gas supplies associated with new crude oil production will offset depletion from existing gas wells. The only non-associated gas exception is the deepwater Lakach field which is expected to start producing new gas supplies in 2017. Imports of LNG into the Manzanillo and Altamira terminals will likely phase out in the early-2020 s as the imports contracts (linked to US Henry Hub pricing expire) and the gas volumes are replaced by pipeline imports from the US. 9
Even though pipeline imports of natural gas from the US to Mexico are the largest and fastest growing sector of supply in Mexico, this element of demand in the US balance is only a small portion of the overall natural gas demand in the US (as shown in the red area on the right graphic). As shown on the left graphic, the developments in US shale gas have revolutionized the US natural gas industry, with shale representing less than 5% of US supply in 2005 to 50% of supply today to 70% of supply by 2025. The Marcellus gas field in the Northeast US (which had almost no production 10 years ago) is now the largest shale gas play in the world based on current production. Although rig counts have fallen since early 2012, improved efficiency and a focus on the play s core sub-plays have led to continued growth that will reach 20 bcfd by 2020 or nearly 25% of total US supply. US power generation is the largest demand sector and will continue to slowly increase in many cases displacing coal-fired power generation plants. Industrial demand will also grow take advantage of the low prices with significant investments in ammonia, methanol, and ethylene/polyethylene projects. LNG exports will continue to increase but will be limited by the ability to execute these large projects and the ability of the world to absorb large amounts of LNG. Nevertheless, based on known reserves of shale gas, supplies will continue to be in abundance of demand for several decades, causing natural gas prices to stay below $5 per million btu for many years into the future. 10
Mexico will be able to take advantage of cheap shale gas supplies from the US by additional investment in cross-border pipelines and pipelines internal to Mexico. Most of the new US to Mexico pipelines will allow additional gas exports from the Waha hub in west Texas and from Arizona to the Northwestern Mexican states. The 2.1 bcfd Los Ramones pipeline came online in January 2015 with full completion expected in Q2 2016. Within Mexico, the CFE will be investing in many pipelines to bring natural gas to replace fuel for oil-fired power plants. Another emerging trend is that Pemex has indicated that it will sell many of its gas pipeline assets to help fund upstream investment. The 5,400 mile national pipeline system, currently 100% owned by Pemex will likely also be sold but timing and terms remain are not yet certain. Nevertheless, the build out of the cross border and internal Mexican gas pipelines will be critical to access cheap natural gas for Mexican power plants and for industrial based users (such as new capacity for natural gas based chemistries like methanol and ammonia). 11
I have mentioned that much of the growth in natural gas imports into Mexico will be for power generation. As shown in the left graphic, about 40 percent of power is currently generated from natural gas, and natural gas will be the fastest growing source of power by displacing higher cost oil-fired power and by meeting new demand growth into the industrial and manufacturing sectors. The recent Energy Reform restructures the entire power sector. This sector is an easier transition than in the upstream oil sector because private investment is already present in power generation. Under the new Reform, privately-owned power generation will now be able to compete with CFE to sell power to the grid. This competition, combined with sourcing more power by cheap natural gas, will ultimately lead to lower power prices for residential and industry consumers. 12
The potential for lower power prices (due to lower oil prices, low natural gas prices, and open competition) is now starting to become a reality in Mexico. The graphic on the left shows the power generation cost curves for the past 4 years, and how the marginal power costs (that ultimately set wholesale prices) have come down by 39%, while average daily power loads have increased by 11% during the same time period. As shown on the graphic on the right, this trend is finally starting to show up as lower power prices for industrial users beginning just this year. The continued future trend of lower power prices is extremely welcome news for the overall future competitiveness of the Mexican manufacturing industry (which is the largest consumer of petrochemicals), because Mexican manufacturers historically has had much higher power prices than their manufacturing competitors in the US. 13
We have spoken about how Energy Reform and Shale Gas have the potential to change the petrochemical industry in Mexico. Now lets briefly talk about how Mexico s economic growth will also facilitate future growth in the petrochemical industry. 14
Mexico is a growing and diversified economy, with economic activity increasingly dominated by the private sector. Economic policy since the 1990s has focused on trade liberalisation and more recently on competition in transport, energy, and telecoms infrastructure. The result has been an influx of foreign investment into manufacturing and rapid growth in Mexican exports, particularly to the US and Canada. However, this has left the Mexican economy more exposed to recent US business cycles. Mexico has the strongest economic growth prospects in the Americas, but still slower than the manufacturing powerhouses of China and India. 15
Mexico s population demographics are very positive for the manufacturing sector. With a working class currently representing 65 percent of the population, Mexico has a labor force to support a rapidly growing manufacturing industry. Furthermore, Mexico has the lowest labor costs in North America at a time when labor costs are rapidly increasing in other exporting countries such as China, Japan and Korea, ultimately allowing Mexico to be a very competitive and rapidly growing exporter of manufactured goods to the US. 16
The growth prospects for the manufacturing industry in Mexico is best exemplified by recent developments in the automobile industry. Mexico is the world's 8 th largest producer and 4 th largest exporter of automobiles. Of more than 3.3 million automobiles were produced in Mexico in 2014, around 2.7 million were exported, mostly to the US and Canada. Last year, Mexico has surpassed Japan as the second largest exporter of cars to the US. 3 factories are planned to open to produce luxury vehicle brands such as Audi, Mercedes-Benz, and BMW. These manufacturers have recognised Mexico s cost competitiveness and production quality. To demonstrate the importance of the automobile industry to the petrochemical industry, please be aware of these statistics: Today, plastics make up 50 percent of the volume of new cars but only 10 percent of the weight, which helps make cars lighter and more fuel efficient. Today s average light vehicle contains over 150 kilograms of plastics & synthetic fibers. Therefore, the rapid growth prospects for the Mexican he automobile industry (and most manufacturing industries) will be a key source of domestic petrochemical demand growth in the future. 17
We have talked about how the Mexican energy industry and the overall Mexican economy will impact the future petrochemical industry. Now let s talk about specific opportunities in the Mexican petrochemical industry. 18
As indicated earlier in the presentation, the Mexico petrochemical industry has been quite stagnant, with a general lack of new investment. As shown by the left graphic, PEMEX production capacities across all the major value chains were essentially flat for the past 15 years due to the lack of available investment capital, technology, and feedstocks a similar story to the discussion we had about the oil, gas, and refining industries. However, during the past 15 years, Mexico s total petrochemical demand continued to grow each year with the exception of the economic recession in 2008-2009. With stagnant production capacity and growing demand, Mexico has had to continue to increase imports of chemicals and polymers almost every year. In 2014, the value of chemicals and polymers imported into Mexico was $36 billion 19
One of the major factors now driving major chemical investments in North America is the availability of cheap feedstocks associated with low natural gas prices. As previously mentioned, the proliferation of new hydrocarbon supplies in North America, particularly in the US, has caused prices for natural gas and natural gas liquids to rapidly fall relative to global crude oil prices. Over the past five years, the low prices of North America natural gas and ethane have provided the North American gas-based chemical industry with a significant advantage over the crude oil based chemical industries in Europe and Asia. As a result, we are now in the midst of an investment renaissance in the North American gas-based chemical industry. 20
Over the next 10 years, the American Chemistry Council estimates that nearly 200 capital investments by the North American chemical industry could spend as much as $125 billion. This will have a major impact on the chemical industry and the economy as a whole. The North America Chemical investment renaissance has largely been focused on 4 petrochemical value chains that start with either ethylene, propylene, methanol, or ammonia, mainly based on the premise that these chemicals can be made out of cheap natural gas or natural gas liquids such as ethane or propane. 21
Over the past 5 years with ethane-to-ethylene cash profit margins as high as 50-60 cents per pound, existing ethylene producers spent hundreds of millions of dollars to debottleneck and expand existing capacity as much as possible. Now, 8 new ethylene & ethylene derivative complexes (with capital costs of $5-9 billion per complex) are under construction and all are expected start-up in the 2016 to 2018 time period. The first new ethylene plant to start-up in North America will be here in Mexico by Braskem-Idesa at the end of this year. I will speak more specifically about this plant in the next two slides. Many other companies have publically indicated that they are studying these multibillion dollar ethylene investments in North America, and the list of these companies is shown on the graphic as hypothetical projects under study. There are several other companies not shown on this list that have not yet publically disclosed their intentions to study or build new ethylene complexes. Not all of these projects will proceed, and now that crude oil prices have fallen relative to natural gas, many of these companies have been delaying their final investment decisions. 22
Now I would like to say a few words about the Braskem-Idesa Etileno XXII project as an example of a successful petrochemical investment in Mexico. This project is Mexico s largest petrochemical investment (nearly $5 billion) The main assets are: 1.05 million tons/year ethane-based ethylene plant 750,000 tons/year high density polyethylene (2 lines) 300,000 tons/year low density polyethylene This investment also includes significant amounts of supporting infrastructure After about 3 years of construction and even more years of planning, this complex will start-up at end of 2015 and will dramatically change the Mexican polyethylene industry by more than doubling Mexico s existing polyethylene capacity. 23
The impact of the new facility will be significant to the Mexican polyethylene trade balance. Today, Mexico imports about 1.5 million tons of polyethylene. When this plant starts up, it will significantly reduce the need for imports of LDPE and HDPE, but some of the production will be temporarily exported until domestic market share can be taken from existing suppliers. There are three reasons why this investment will be a success and a future model for other petrochemical investments in Mexico: First, the project secured a long-term source of ethane feedstock that is priced competitively to US Gulf Coast prices, and therefore able to take advantage of the low ethane prices related to shale gas in the US Second, the project is utilizing the latest technologies and world-scale sizes to produce ethylene and polyethylene, providing a competitive advantage in terms of product quality and costs Third, the project has local access to the rapidly growing Mexican market with over 300 customers who will likely favor this domestic supplier with local technical assistance and short delivery lead times over imported competitors products. 24
For any of you that have been involved with the petrochemical industry more than 5 years, you know that markets always change and never stay the same. Starting in the last few months of 2014, global crude oil prices have now began a rapid decline. This was in part due to steady increases of crude oil supplies from shalerelated developments in North America, but also due to slower global oil demand growth and a new policy from the OPEC oil producers cartel, in particular Saudi Arabia, which is no longer cutting their own production in order to maintain oil prices, but letting the market s supply/demand forces determine price level. The key question going forward now is whether 2015 will be another year in which the relative prices in the North American and global energy markets change again, and if so, how will this impact the gas-based chemical industry renaissance that was based on the last 5 years of relatively cheap natural gas prices. 25
To examine the impact of higher/lower oil prices on the gas-based chemistry renaissance, we can look at global production cost curves for ethylene. These two charts show the production cost for all of the ethylene production in the world, sorted from lowest cost to highest cost. The chart on the left shows the global ethylene production in September of 2014 when crude oil prices were $98/bbl. At this time, North America ethane-based ethylene (shown as the green bar) had a production cost advantage of over $800 per ton relative to the Asia naphtha-based ethylene production costs (shown as the orange bar) The competitiveness of North American ethane-based ethylene has significantly eroded over the past 12 months. At this level, current plants under construction are still cash positive and will run, but the returns on investment for new plants are now much lower and likely below hurdle rates for new investments if crude oil prices remain this low for the long-term. As a result, investors are taking a new and cautious look at planned projects. Already, we have seen some companies indicate delays their final investment decisions on their proposed ethylene complexes in North America until there is more clarity on the future of the crude oil markets. Wood Mackenzie s long-term view for North America natural gas prices is for prices to stay in the $4-5 per million btu level, but for global crude oil prices to rise back up to $80-90 per bbl by the end of the decade. Therefore, gas chemistries investments will still be viable in North America, but probably at a much slower pace of investment in the future. 26
So, where are the opportunities for the Mexico petrochemical industry given the previously discussed dynamics in the energy, economy, and petrochemical sectors? As gas pipeline networks are extended into Mexico to access cheap US natural gas, there will continue to be the most opportunities in the C1 chemistries, particularly methanol and ammonia. There could also be opportunities in the methanol conversion technologies to convert methanol into gasoline, ethylene, or propylene. For C2 chemistries (like ethylene and ethylene derivatives), after the Braskem-Idesa project starts-up, an assessment of the ethane feedstock availabilities could result in additional ethylene expansions. Then, in the much longer term with new domestic gas supply related to Energy Reform, more ethane could become available to support C2 chemistries. For C3 chemistries (like propylene and propylene derivatives), opportunities are unlikely in the near-term until new refineries can be built or there are local sources of new propane for PDH sourced propylene. One possibility is to consider the methanol conversion technologies to make propylene, since these investments could use competitive sources of imported natural gas feedstock. For C4/C5/C6 chemistries (like butadiene, isoprene, benzene, paraxylene and derivatives), there are some opportunities to modernize existing aromatics complexes to increase output. However, most growth in these chemistries will depend on the longer term expansions of the refinery sector as well. 27
Now I would like to conclude my presentation. Mexico certainly has potential to strongly grow the domestic petrochemical industry, as the 13 th largest economy in the world and the 14 th largest hydrocarbon producer in the world. North America s shale gas has already transformed the natural gas (and power) industries, so Mexico can see the fastest investment growth prospects in the gas based chemistry sectors Energy Reform is necessary to grow and develop Mexico s energy resources, but it is also a key precursor step to provide new competitive feedstocks for future growth of the petrochemical industry The Mexico economy and population demographics are well placed to cause rapid growth in the manufacturing sector, especially the automobile industry, which will result in continued strong demand growth for petrochemicals Yesterday s petrochemical industry was mostly stagnant and new chemical demands were mostly met with imports. Tomorrow s petrochemical industry is positioned for strong growth: mostly for gasbased chemistries in the near-term, but all chemistry chains will benefit in the longerterm once all of the elements of Energy Reform are fully implemented. 28
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