As the age of the hydrocarbon enters its final era, the action increasingly moves to Asia and plastics take center stage. With demand for transport fuels set to tail off in the years ahead, a new breed of processing plants is sprouting up across the region. These integrated refineries convert oil into petrochemicals, the building blocks for everything from food packaging to car interiors, and produce less fuels like gasoline. In China, the biggest of these is Rongsheng Petrochemical Co.’s plant on Zhoushan island, near Ningbo. The 800,000 barrel-a-day operation opened in 2019 and will reach full capacity before year-end. An Indian Oil Corp.-led group is planning a gigantic 1.2 million barrels a day oil-to-chemicals complex on the country’s west coast. Saudi Aramco, as part of […]