Sunday, December 23, 2007

Ethylene, the next big thing for China?

Construction of an 800,000-ton-per-year ethylene project by the China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation has begun. Zeng Peiyan, vice premier of the State Council stressed the need to improve the layout of China's ethylene industry, promote the optimisation of the industry's structure, and make still greater contributions to the rise of the central region.

The 800,000-ton-per-year ethylene project in Wuhan is a major project for developing China's petrochemical industry and an important undertaking that will contribute to the rise of the central region and promote the balanced development of the region's economy. The construction of this project will help improve the layout of China's ethylene industry, raise the level of using oil resources, lead to the development and upgrading of related industries, and promote the adjustment and optimisation of the central region's economic structure. It will be of vital significance to the sound and fast development of the economy.

It is imperative to bring into full play the advantages of all sectors, enhance cooperation, be elaborate in building the project, exercise scientific management, and turn the 800,000-ton-per-year ethylene plant in Wuhan into a large modern and internationally competitive petrochemical industry base so as to make still greater contributions to developing China's petrochemical industry and fuelling the rise of the central region. Produced from petroleum, ethylene is a basic material for making synthetic fibres, synthetic rubber, synthetic plastics, and many organic industrial chemicals.

Demand for ethylene has continued to grow relatively fast in this country. China will have three main ethylene-producing areas - the Yangtze River Delta, Bohai Rim Area, and Zujiang [Pearl River] Delta - by the year 2010. Their production capacity will account for more than 60 per cent of the nation's total capacity. In addition, several large-scale ethylene production bases will be completed by that time; they will be located in Xinjiang, Gansu, Sichuan, Hubei, and some other places in the central and western regions.

Wuhan's 800,000-ton-per-year ethylene project is associated with the 8-million-ton-per-year oil-refining project operated by Sinopec in Wuhan. It consists of an 800,000-ton-per-year ethylene cracking installation, 500,000-ton cracked gasoline hydrogenation installation, 120,000-ton butadiene extraction installation, 400,000- ton aromatics extraction installation, as well as production installations with annual capacities of 300,000 tons of high- density polyethylene, 300,000 tons of linear low-density polyethylene, 600,000 tons of ethylene oxide, 300,000 tons of ethylene glycol, and 400,000 tons of polypropylene. The total investment is more than 14 billion yuan. The project is expected to be completed and put into operation in 2011.

How much is too much for China's latest ethylene development?