A total of 22% of the world's Ethylene is produced by Middle Eastern companies. Proximity to consumer markets in Asia, Europe, Africa and countries such as India and China is the main competitiveness of the Petrochemical industry.

These industries have developed extensively in recent years, especially among the GCC member states, through access to Gases associated with crude oil, and the region's producers have been pioneers in the production of ethylene and its ethane derivatives.
With increasing demand in other industries such as power plants and water desalination industries, the supply of gas required by the petrochemical industry in this region has faced difficulties resulting in producers turning to heavier feedstocks such as Naphtha.

According to BP, the total proven oil and gas reserves in the Middle east are 47.9% and 43.2% of the world's total reserves, respectively, It should be mentioned that Iran having the largest gas reserves in the world. In the past, the Middle East petrochemical industry was built to export products to Asian markets, but expert forecasts suggest that in the future, producers in the region should look for new markets to sell their products, as Asian markets will only accept Middle Eastern products until 2009.

Iran currently has seven ethylene projects under implementation, which are expected to increase the country's ethylene production capacity by 2025 with the operation of these projects by nearly 6 million and 200 thousand tons. If this is achieved, Iran will have about 32% of the Middle East ethylene production capacity and 7% of the world's total ethylene production capacity.
Table 2 shows the ongoing plans of the country's ethylene and Figure 3 shows the outlook for Iran's share in the ethylene glycol trade in the Middle East and the world until 2025.
 

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