China’s Yangzi Petrochem plans to swap naphtha for crude C4

18 April 2005 05:22  [Source: ICIS news]

SHANGHAI (CNI)--China’s Yangzi Petrochemical plans to swap naphtha in exchange for crude C4s from BASF-YPC Co, a Yangzi source told CNI on Monday.

 

Asian Chemical News (ACN), CNI’s sister magazine, reported earlier that Yangzi planned to secure crude C4s from BASF-YPC. This is the first time it is known that a product-swap agreement was being negotiated as well.

 

Yangzi plans to extract butadiene from the crude C4s for feeding a styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) project, which will be a joint venture with local private company GPRO Group.

 

The source said Yangzi and BASF-YPC had agreed to the swap arrangement in principle. Yangzi is now seeking government approval for building a 120,000 tonne/year butadiene facility, which is targeted to start up in 2006.

 

BASF-YPC, which is commissioning its 600,000 tonne/year cracker complex in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, has secured 90% of its naphtha requirement from Jinling Petrochemical, a Sinopec subsidiary. It currently relies on imports for the remaining naphtha. BASF-YPC had originally planned to recycle crude-C4s as feedstock for the cracker.

 

CNI understands that BASF-YPC is not allowed to produce butadiene in its cracker complex, as part of its joint-venture agreement with Yangzi Petrochemical and Sinopec, as that would compete directly with Yangzi, which produces 100,000 tonne/year of butadiene.

 

BASF-YPC is a 50:50 joint venture between BASF and Sinopec, the parent company of Yangzi.

 

Yangzi will be able to supply naphtha from its refinery, which was expanded from 6.4m tonne/year to 8m tonne/year last year.

 

The 200,000 tonne/year SBR project will be pursued in two phases. Work has started on the 120,000 tonne/year first phase which is due onstream in March 2006.

By: Clara Tan
+65 6780 4359

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