Benzene: Feedstocks

Why integrated refineries win the benzene game

What this tab covers What it is made from and what it feeds: the raw materials and energy per tonne with their share of cost (linked to the commodity table), who is low-cost and why, and the chemicals made from it.

Benzene comes from naphtha via reformers and crackers, from toluene, or from coke-oven light oil. The feedstock is crude oil in practice. What decides competitiveness is integration: a large refinery with reformers, paraxylene units and crackers can place every fraction profitably, while a stand-alone extraction unit lives on the benzene-naphtha spread.

Inputs per tonne

Input	Quantity per tonne	Role	Share of cost	Source
Oil Crude oil	naphtha opportunity cost; benzene is 5-10% of reformate (indicative)	hydrocarbon source	about 80-90% of cash cost (indicative)	indicative; OPIS spread data 2026
Kc Coking coal	about 10 kg crude benzene per t of coal coked (indicative)	by-product source, mainly China	low; by-product credit	indicative
Toluene	about 2.2-2.5 t per t benzene in disproportionation (indicative)	swing feedstock	about 85% in conversion units (indicative)	indicative
Hydrogen	small; needed for pygas hydrotreating and hydrodealkylation	hydrotreating	a few%	indicative

Who is low-cost, and why

Large integrated Chinese and Korean refinery complexes are lowest cost because they upgrade every fraction. Middle East refiners have cheap crude but small aromatics volumes. US ethane crackers make almost no benzene, so US supply depends on reformers. European naphtha-based producers sit at the top of the curve.

Raw materials on the commodity table

Oil Crude oil Kc Coking coal

What it is made into

Product	Note
SM Styrene	about half of benzene demand
Phe Phenol and acetone	about a fifth, via cumene
CPL Caprolactam	via cyclohexane or phenol
PA Nylon (PA6, PA66)	via cyclohexane
PU Polyurethanes (MDI, TDI, polyols)	via nitrobenzene and aniline
LAB Linear alkylbenzene	about 3% of benzene