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Metallocene catalysts have been in existence for
almost a decade along with commercial polyolefin products. Though
commercial polyolefin products have been in the market for over
7-8 years, barely 3% market penetration has been achieved so far.
They are yet to obtain a significant market share of the total Polyolefin
market of about 88 million tonnes. While actual figures are not
available, their share is certainly not more than 2-2.5 million
tonnes.
Several reasons have contributed to this low penetration.
Firstly, very few producers were involved in the manufacture of
these products until the end of the last decade. Various time consuming
legal issues have also been a deterent. The few pioneers of metallocene
products had planned to achieve higher value additions mainly to
recover a significant amount of high research costs incurred in
product development. Higher prices of metallocene polyolefins obviously
restricted their usage only for speciality and high end products
capable of absorbing such higher costs.
Additionally, the major emphasis of these polyolefins was on metallocene
LLDPE. LLDPE has a market share of approximately 19% of the total
polyolefin market. PP, having about 38% share of the total polyolefin
market was not affected because no significant grades of metallocene
PP were introduced until about 1-2 years ago. For quite some time
only successful PP grades were available at low molecular weight
levels. The major advantage of controlled branching in LLDPE offered
by Metallocene catalysts, indeed, do not pose any problems in PP
homopolymer. PP homopolymer has more than 75% share of the total
PP market. Some penetration was seen in fibres/non wovens, though
not very significant. Metallocene PP in lower MFR ( higher molecular
weight) have been introduced recently. They therefore, can offer
the advantage of lower organoleptics in BOPP/Cast PP film and can
find some usage in food packaging.
Higher feedstock costs resulting in higher prices of traditional
polyolefins since 2000, coupled with staggering economies of North
America, Europe and Japan, leading to weak demand, have restricted
the penetration of these higher cost Metallocene Polyolefins.
In the mean time, more developments have taken
place in the conventional Ziegler-Natta catalysts, eliminating few
of the deficiencies of conventional products. In fact, the fifth
generation Z-N catalysts, providing superior performance have now
been well established. Metallocene polyolefins will grow at higher
growth rates because of smaller volume level, but it is difficult
to visualize that they would achieve 25% market penetration by 2005
- a level that many experts expected a few years ago.
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