Frequently Asked Questions

The Global Chemicals Inventory comprises an inventory of global chemical plants, including location, immediate ownership, primary and secondary chemicals produced, and the feedstocks used in their production. GEM trackers typically include the previously mentioned data types, plus unit-level capacity and production data, all operational statuses including proposed and under construction plants, full parent ownership trees, and other plant- and unit-level details. The Global Chemicals Inventory provides the foundation to develop the full Global Chemicals Tracker with plans for release in Q4 2026.

Each plant location is marked “exact” or “approximate.” In the case of exact coordinates, locations have been visually determined using Google Maps, Google Earth, or Wikimapia. If the location of a plant is not known, GEM identifies the most approximate location.

To find out the coordinates of a location and whether a location is exact or approximate, click on the location dot, select the wiki page, and look under “Project Details.”

In some cases, only approximate location information could be found. Additionally, satellite photos in some geographies are updated infrequently, so recent activity is not shown.

Yes, click on “Table view” on the bottom of the map.

The Global Chemicals Inventory aims to include all operating chemical plants that produce at least one of the eight tracked chemicals in each country or area, regardless of size.

The standard naming convention of the Global Chemicals Inventory is “[Company] [Municipality] Chemical Plant”. Some plants are given unique names by the owners, or based on local conventions that fall outside of the standard naming convention. Those unique names are indicated when relevant.

The GChI tracks global production of eight “building block” chemicals: ethylene, propylene, and butadiene (“olefins”); benzene, toluene, and xylene (“aromatics”); ammonia; and methanol. Where possible, the GChI also tracks secondary chemical products produced within the same plants that produce one of the eight primary chemical products.

Yes, chemical plants can produce one or more of the eight primary chemical products tracked by the GChI, plus any number of other secondary chemical products that are produced on-site within the same chemical plant.

As there are many thousands of distinct chemical products, it is important to distinguish which chemicals fall within the scope of the Global Chemicals Inventory. The chemicals tracked within this dataset are categorized as follows:

• Primary products: This chemical product category includes any of the eight tracked chemicals produced on-site: ethylene, propylene, and butadiene (“olefins”); benzene, toluene, and xylene (“aromatics”); methanol; and ammonia. These chemical products are denoted as “Primary” even if they are consumed immediately downstream. In the few instances where the exact type of olefin or aromatic is unconfirmed, the primary product is listed as “olefins (unknown type)” or “aromatics (unknown type),” respectively.
• Secondary products: This chemical product category includes any chemical other than the Primary products that are known to be made on-site (e.g., polyethylene, fertilizers, gasoline). These chemical products are denoted as “Secondary” even if they are the main economic product at the chemical plant, and are not comprehensive.

Any Secondary chemicals other than the eight Primary chemicals products that are known to be made on-site are included in the data for a given chemical plant. The list of Secondary chemical products is not comprehensive. Secondary chemicals are only listed if they are confirmed to be made on-site according to credible public sources. A given plant could have no Secondary chemical products listed because it only produces Primary chemical products, or because no credible data source is available to confirm any Secondary chemical production.

Feedstocks are the raw materials which are converted into chemical products through industrial processes. The summary tables contain regional plant information summarized by feedstock type. Given the wide array of feedstocks utilized by the global chemical industry, the feedstocks are combined into categories with similar characteristics:

• Natural Gas and Derivatives: This category includes plants that use some combination of Natural Gas, Methane, Ethane, Propane, Butane, Natural Gas Liquids (NGL), Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG), or Coal Bed Methane as feedstocks.
• Coal and Coke: This category includes plants that use some combination of Coal, Coke, or Coke Oven Gas as feedstocks.
• Crude Oil and Non-Naphtha Fractions: This category includes plants that use some combination of Crude Oil, Condensate, Fuel Oil, Gas Oil, Heavy Fuel Oil, Heavy Oil, Hydrotreated Residue, Light Oil, Pyrolysis Oil, or Vacuum Gas Oil as feedstocks.
• Naphtha: This category includes plants that primarily use Naphtha (a fossil-based hydrocarbon mixture, generally a fraction of crude oil) as feedstock.
• Hydrogen and Carbon Dioxide: This category includes plants that use some combination of Hydrogen, Green Hydrogen, or Carbon Dioxide as feedstocks.
• Intermediate Chemicals: This category includes plants that use some combination of Acetic Acid, Benzene, Ethylene, Methanol, Mixed C4s, Mixed Xylenes, Propylene, Pyrolysis Gasoline, Reformate, or Sulfuric Acid as feedstocks.
• Bio-based: This category includes plants that use some combination of Biomass, Bioethanol, Bio-oils, Biogas, or Biomethane as feedstocks.
• Unknown: This category includes plants in which the feedstock is unknown.
• Multi-category: This category includes plants that use feedstocks from 2 or more of the above categories.

The GChI reports the first owner/operator of the plant in the “Owner (English)” column along with their percent stake in the plant. If there is an owner with no stake percentage listed, the exact percentage data has not been confirmed.

Please fill out an error report form here.

The inventory was designed and produced by Global Energy Monitor. To the extent possible, the information in the inventory has been verified by researchers familiar with particular countries/areas. The following people participated in plant-by-plant research: David Kampmann (Spatial Finance Initiative), Smriti Jalihal (Spatial Finance Initiative), Christophe Christiaen (Spatial Finance Initiative), Alok Singh (Spatial Finance Initiative), Neetu Kushawa (Spatial Finance Initiative), Ben Caldecott (Spatial Finance Initiative), Joe Hittinger (Global Energy Monitor), Caitlin Swalec (Global Energy Monitor), Charmaine Dalisay (Global Energy Monitor), Fanwei Liu (Global Energy Monitor), Henna Khadeeja (Global Energy Monitor), Jessie Zhi (Global Energy Monitor), Norah Elmagraby (Global Energy Monitor), Rolando Almada (Global Energy Monitor), Zhanaiym Kozybay (Global Energy Monitor), Ziwei Zhang (Global Energy Monitor), and Charlene Hou (formerly Global Energy Monitor).  The project is managed by Joe Hittinger within GEM’s Heavy Industry Program, managed by Caitlin Swalec, with support from Louisa Plotnick, Ted Nace, and Justin Locke.

Please refer to the Download Data page for citation guidance.