Zhenhai Refining to increase cracker, refinery capacities

31 July 2009 10:40  [Source: ICIS news]

SHANGHAI (ICIS news)--Zhenhai Refining & Chemical Co, a subsidiary of Sinopec, plans to build a 1m tonne/year cracker during the country’s 12th five-year plan (2011-2015), which would double its ethylene capacity to 2m tonnes/year, a company source said on Friday.

The company also plans to build a new 15m tonne/year refinery to provide feedstock naphtha for the new cracker, increasing the firm’s refining capacity by 65% to 38m tonnes/year, the source added.

"All the projects are [part of] the company’s long-term plan, subject to the government’s approval. Therefore, there is no detailed timeline at the moment," the source said in Mandarin.

The company already has a 1m tonne/year cracker under construction, which is expected to start up in the first half of 2010.

Zhenhai Refining & Chemical is located at Ningbo, in eastern China's Zhejiang province.

Sinopec plans to build a petrochemical base at Xuwei Industry Park in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province, a company source said.

Sinopec signed an agreement with the Lianyungang municipal government last week on the three-phase construction project, the timeline for which has not yet been confirmed, the source added.

In the first stage, Sinopec and the Lianyungang Port Group would jointly build a wharf with a nameplate crude oil storage capacity of 300,000 tonnes, a 4.5m cubic-metre oil storage facility and a pipeline for transporting crude oil from the East China Sea to the port of Lianyungang, the source said.

In the second stage, the company planned to build a refining facility that could process more than 10m tonnes/year of crude oil. The third stage would see ethylene capacity increase more than 1m tonnes/year, according to the source.

With additional reporting by Dolly Wu

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By: Judith Wang
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