Expansion plans to continue

26 March 2001 00:00  [Source: ACN]

China will continue with plans to debottleneck its local crackers in order to meet domestic consumption.

Such efforts are also aimed at increasing the efficiency of these plants and improving their competitiveness.

The Chemical Planning Institute (CPI) estimates the present 4.5m tonne/year ethylene capacity in China can only meet 50% of local demand.

A CPI researcher said ethylene plants owned by Shanghai Petrochemical Co, Nanjing Petrochemical, Daqing Petrochemical, Qilu Petrochemical, Yanshan Petrochemical and Maoming Petrochemical will eventually be expanded in three stages to attain a final capacity of 700 000-1m tonne/year each.

Other smaller ethylene plants will also be expanded to 200 000 tonne/year. These crackers are in Jilin, Shanghai, Liaoyang, Lanzhou, Tianjin, Dushanzi, Zhongyuan and Beijing. These smaller crackers have a capacity of 120-140 000 tonne/year.

The expansions are expected to be completed by 2005.

By then, China's ethylene production, excluding output from Sino-foreign crackers, will be able to satisfy 60-70% of local demand.

Shanghai Petrochemical and Qilu Petrochemical have announced plans to expand their crackers to 700 000 tonne/year and 600 000 tonne/year respectively (ACN 14 Aug, p19; 4 Sept, p37).

Maoming Petrochemical also plans to increase its ethylene output to 800-850 000 tonne/year in 2003 from the current 380 000 tonne/year (ACN 10 July, p23).

Daqing Petrochemical will start producing 600 000 tonne/year of ethylene by this year (ACN 25 Sept, p40).

China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) has already lined up expansion plans for its smaller crackers in Liaoyang and Dushanzi (ACN 25 Sept, p40).

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