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OAPEC Activities
Volume 41 Issue 10
9
workplace environment, and keep production
process balanced.
In the end, the lecturer gave an overview on
the oil refining industry in the Arab countries,
where total refining capacity of the 51 refineries
in OAPEC member countries reached about
7.55 million b/d, representing 90.72% of the
8.322 million b/d of the total refining capacity
of Arab countries. The total refining capacity
of the 11 refineries of the non OAPEC member
Arab countries reached about 772,000 b/d,
representing 9.28%.
Lecture on the Petrochemicals
Industry:
It is a paper presented
by
Dr Samir Al Qar’ish,
where he mentioned
that the petrochemicals
industry is considered one
of the important pillars of
the world economy, a base
for building the future, and a
main pivotal point in industrial development.
It is currently considered part and parcel of the
manufacturing and consumption industry; it
includes a wide range of daily used products.
The petrochemicals industry has contributed
in the past four decades to the renaissance
and development of all sides of life in most
industrialized countries that have been using
these industries to serve their economic growth.
The lecturer indicated that the 21
st
century
is witnessing radical structural changes in
the petrochemicals industry, as the world is
witnessing a core shift with regards to raw
materials, geography, and population aspects.
The Middle East emerges as a world production
hub due to its low cost natural resources, the
shift of the major consumption regions to East
Asian countries due to the rapid growth on
demand from India and China; the thing that
calls for more planning to meet the world’s
demand for petrochemicals.
The lecturer stressed that integration is very
important between the oil and petrochemicals
industries, due to the economic benefits.
He then gave a glimpse about the ethylene
production in the Arab countries and the world.
The second session was held at noon,
chaired by Engineer Emad Nasef Mekki. It
included two lectures: