Competitiveness Criteria and Possible Recovery Strategies for Petrochemical Business

The object of this work is to discuss the causes, definitions and implementation of strategies that could result in structural modifications within the European petrochemical industry. The following figure depicts the basic business strategy for operating in high growth petrochemical markets. In the high growth petrochemicals market, the players have to expand in order to maintain their market share and position. The possible recovery strategies, calling for the restructuring of company directives, are: a) the adoption of product differentiation strategies; and, b) the need to integrate industrial complexes. The confirmation of these two movements could result in modifications to the price cycles in the petrochemical industry. This paper is an attempt to analyze the industry and to provide strategic alternatives.