Karandikars & Associates

Petrochemicals

Across industries, management decisions are ultimately driven by the comparison of planned performance with actual outcomes.

In petrochemicals, the scale of operations, the high degree of integration, and the presence of multiple co-products frequently obscure this comparison. Performance assessment often becomes fragmented across plants, products, and time periods, resulting in reliance on post-hoc explanations rather than structured analytical insight.

Beyond the obvious domain knowledge of steam cracking technologies and downstream petrochemical economics, our capabilities in the petrochemicals sector extend into the systematic structuring of Plan versus Actual analysis for complex, integrated operations.

Core analytical capability

The capability demonstrated here centres on the preparation of an integrated Annual Business Plan (ABP) for a petrochemical complex, and its systematic comparison with actual operating outcomes over time.

Key characteristics of this analytical framework include:

Explicit representation of operating assumptions

Transparent linkage between feedstock economics and downstream margins

Plant-wise and product-wise EBITDA construction

Time-phased (monthly) plan formulation

Consistent aggregation and disaggregation from unit level to complex level

Explicit mapping and valuation of inter-plant and inter-unit stream transfers within integrated operationsl

By embedding assumptions directly into the analytical structure, the comparison of actual performance with plan becomes transparent and methodologically consistent, rather than dependent on manual reconciliations or post-hoc adjustments.

Scope and extensibility

While the demonstration focuses on a single integrated complex, it explicitly compares alternative feedstock pathways (naphtha cracking and ethane cracking) supplying identical downstream polymer and glycol units and the underlying framework is inherently extensible

In real-world applications, petrochemical organisations often operate multiple crackers, multiple downstream configurations, and multiple sites across geographies. The same analytical structure can be applied to individual plants, integrated sites, business units, or enterprise-wide portfolios.

Aggregation and disaggregation can be performed at any level required by management, without altering the underlying analytical logic.

Demonstration intent

The demonstration provided on this platform illustrates methodology and analytical capability, not commercial benchmarking or investment advice.

All results are presented at EBITDA level. Capital structure, financing, depreciation, and taxation are deliberately excluded to maintain focus on operating economics.

In the demonstration, actual performance is simulated to illustrate the mechanics of Plan versus Actual comparison. In real-world deployments, actual performance is drawn directly from the organisation’s existing enterprise systems.

When implemented correctly, Plan versus Actual analysis reveals the true drivers of performance variance, eliminates ambiguity in explanations, and supports timely and defensible management decisions.

Illustrative exploration

An illustrative analytical demonstration is provided below to showcase the application of this framework for an integrated petrochemical complex.

The demonstration focuses on the preparation of an integrated Annual Business Plan (ABP) and its comparison with Actual performance, highlighting plant-level and complex-level transparency across products and time periods.

The objective is to demonstrate analytical capability and methodology, rather than to exhaustively replicate all commercial or contractual realities.

View the Integrated Petrochemicals Annual Business Plan demonstration

This analytical framework provides a consistent and transparent foundation for management decision-making, enabling performance evaluation across plants, products, and time horizons within a single integrated structure