据ICIS网站12月4日迪拜报道 石油化工行业正面临着一些非常重大的挑战，如经济增长乏力、贸易战和保护主义、气候变化、公众对破坏海洋生物的塑料废料日益愤怒、破坏性技术和数字化等等。
然而，仔细观察这些挑战中的大多数，可以发现，只要行业认识到它们的潜力，企业就有很大的机会克服这些挑战，并从中受益。
在迪拜举行的第14届海湾石油化工协会（GPCA）论坛上，行业领袖们详细介绍了行业面临的主要问题，并提出了可能的解决方案。
埃克森美孚化学公司联席总裁凯伦·麦基表示：“在这种环境下，合作至关重要，因为挑战是全球性的，而且构成复杂。”
这些是全球人口的大规模增长，创新产品的需要，以及在生活的各个方面实现可持续发展的动力。
根据一般估计，世界人口将从目前的70亿增长到未来25年的90亿。反过来，这将导致对各种产品的需求急剧上升。
对里昂德巴塞尔首席执行官鲍勃帕特尔而言，数字化是塑造石化行业未来发展的四大关键力量之一。
对他来说，数字化与贸易全球化、可持续性和塑料废弃物并列为推动行业未来发展的主要力量。
除了追求全球化和可持续性，处理塑料垃圾也是该行业的首要任务。
帕特尔指出：“问题不在于塑料。这是塑料垃圾，我们如何处理它后使用。”
帕特尔说：“我知道这些力量是强大的，它们不可忽视，不知何故，它们将塑造我们的行业向前发展。”
其中一些变化将对行业产生负面影响，但其他变化可能产生有益影响。
例如，每年有1亿人进入中产阶级，这推动了化学制品消费的增长。这巩固了类似埃克森美孚化学这样的企业，对该行业长期增长的信心。
王磊 摘译自 ICIS
原文如下：
GPCA ’19: Chemical industry challenges can turn into opportunities
The petrochemical industry is facing some very significant challenges in the shape of weak economic growth, trade wars and protectionism, climate change, growing public anger over plastic waste disrupting marine life, disruptive technologies and digitization, to name just a few.
Yet a closer look at most of these challenges shows there are great opportunities for businesses to overcome them, and benefit from them, provided the industry recognize their potential.
Industry leaders at the 14th Annual Gulf Petrochemicals and Chemicals Association (GPCA) Forum in Dubai detailed the major issues confronting the industry and suggested possible solutions.
“In this environment, cooperation will be crucial because the challenges are global in nature and complex in their make-up,” said ExxonMobil Chemical Co president Karen McKee, while identifying three key trends that will impact the industry.
These are the massive rise in the global population, the need to innovate products, and the drive for sustainability in every aspect of life.
According to general estimates, the world population will grow to 9bn people in the next quarter of a century from 7bn currently. This will, in turn, result in a dramatic rise to demand for all sorts of products.
For LyondellBasell CEO Bob Patel, digitisation is one of the four key forces that will shape the petrochemical industry going into the future.
For him digitization ranked with globalisation of trade, sustainability and plastic waste as major forces that will drive the future of the industry.
Apart from the quest for globalisation and sustainability, dealing with plastic waste is also on top of the industry’s priority list.
“The issue is not plastics. It is plastic waste and how we dispose it after use,” Patel noted.
“I know these forces are powerful, they cannot be ignored and somehow they will shape our industry going forward,” Patel said.
Some of these changes will have negative impact on the industry, but others may have beneficial effects.
For instance, 100m people each year enter the middle-class population, which drives the growth in consumption of products made from chemicals. This underpins McKee’s confidence in the long-term growth of the industry.
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