Argentina has traditionally had the highest per capita consumption of petrochemicals products in Latin America, although the petrochemical industry is modestly sized in international terms. Chemical majors such as Dow Chemical and Repsol YPF began investing heavily in the mid-1990s, which helped the Argentine industry recuperate after a period of relatively slow growth. However, since then, investment has slowed considerably and the industry has fallen behind global trends and the renationalisation of YPF in 2012 caused controversy and legal disputes, yet did not result in any improvement in feedstock availability for the petrochemicals industry. President Mauricio Macri is pursuing a more pragmatic and business-friendly period of policymaking, encouraging greater investment into unconventional assets, primarily by larger, more cash-rich producers. This is stimulating downstream investments with the hope that the country's large untapped gas reserves will help yield sufficient feedstock for a new world-scale petrochemicals complex.

页岩气革命以来，美国页岩气产量大增驱动天然气产量也不断攀高。在天然气产量扩张的大背景下，乙烷分离量不断增长。自 2016 年以来，乙烷由于更多地作为化工原料制备乙烯，乙烷逐渐脱离天然气定价、化工属性得以强化。2016 年来自于油气的乙烷中，Marcellus、Utica、Permian以及 Eagle Ford 四大产区占比高达 78%。未来随着上游油气产量持续扩张以及乙烷分离倾向不断强化，美国乙烷未来增量将相当可观。 

2018年1-11月，我国石油和化工行业运行呈以下特征。一是石化行业投资动力均有所好转，油气开采业和化工行业固定资产投资均高于上年同期水平。二是生产保持平稳。油气开采业生产情况有所好转，石油加工业和化学工业维持平稳增长。

在美国全面恢复对伊朗制裁生效日到来之际，伊朗石油经济出现较大震荡，伊朗里亚尔兑美元汇率大幅波动，政府无力控制；原油价格可能大涨。美国威胁对伊制裁使伊朗的原油出口量降至零，相关国家政府、国际石油公司对此反应不一，给未来伊朗石油工业发展和外国石油公司在伊投资蒙上浓重的阴影。中国企业正在伊朗执行的项目面临人才流失、物资流失、资金流失的问题。面对美国恢复制裁，伊朗采取了新的外汇政策，转变态度向中国及中国公司示好。中国公司应做好多手准备，争取获得国家层面指导和支持的同时，提升自身素质和能力，有针对性地解决相关问题。

近年来，随着社会对清洁能源的需求不断扩大，我国天然气对外依存度逐年提高。借鉴美国经验，努力促进我国页岩气开发是满足天然气需求的必然选择。本文通过提供美国页岩气开采公司的成本数据，分析近几年页岩气开采成本下降的原因，以及成本下降对美国的影响，从而提出对中国开采页岩气以及控制页岩气开采成本的建议。

Fluctuations in the oil & gas industry owing to uncertainty in the demand & supply scenario is a major restraint for the market growth. This has been further elevated with rising environmental concerns due to stringent government regulations and standardization in most of the countries, particularly in the U.S. and European Union. Rising applications of renewable energy sources on a large scale are also projected to alter the downhole tools demand over the forecast period. Downhole tools market has been segmented on the basis of type, application, and region. Based on type, the market has been bifurcated as drilling tools, flow & pressure tools, control tools, handling tools and other. Downhole tools applications are in activities such as well completion, logging, well intervention, fracturing, and well measurements.