

The 1990s also witnessed the increased usage of metallocene catalysts. 181 Although rocked by an economic crisis in the late 1990s, the Asia-Pacific region led refining capacity additions, adding more than 8 MMbpd (net) by 2000-China alone more than doubled domestic refining capacity to nearly 6 MMbpd within the decade. In conjunction with new secondary unit capacity builds, the refining industry increased total net crude distillation capacity by nearly 8 MMbpd, reaching more than 83 MMbpd by 2000. New clean-fuels regulations led to additional refining capacity being built during the 1990s to reduce sulfur levels in transportation fuels.

Both agreements call upon nations to significantly mitigate carbon emissions. Additional greenhouse gas emissions reduction initiatives also emerged from the Kyoto Protocol in the late 1990s/early 2000s, a precursor to the Paris Agreement in 2016. 222 This trend is still progressing today. As a result, refiners spent billions of dollars during the 1990s to install, modify, upgrade and reconfigure process units to adhere to new government regulations. Much like several initiatives passed in the 1970s and 1980s, the 1990s were a decade heavily focused on environmental issues, with many new regulations being enacted to not only mitigate industrial and vehicle emissions but also to advance the production of clean fuels globally.
