China’s Shenhua Ningxia eyes MTP project start-up in end ’10

11 June 2010 09:05  [Source: ICIS news]

SHANGHAI (ICIS news)--China’s major coal producer, Shenhua Ningxia Coal Industry Group Co, is hoping to make an integrated start-up of its methanol-to-propylene (MTP) project by the end of this year, a company source said on Friday.

The MTP project broke ground at the end of 2005 at the Ningdong Energy and Heavy Petrochemicals Park in northwestern Ningxia province, and was estimated to produce 1.67m tonnes/year of methanol, 470,000 tonnes/year of propylene and 500,000 tonnes/year of polypropylene (PP) after completion, the source said.

Construction of the whole project at a cost of an estimated yuan (CNY) 17bn ($2.49bn) was nearing to an end with engineering work completed in some important units, the source told ICIS news.

“We also have taken successful trial runs at the downstream polypropylene unit,” he added.

Mechanical work had just been completed in the other units, such as the methanol and MTP plant, but trials runs had not been conducted yet, according to the source.

However, solo trial runs of the units would take place in the coming months, he said.

“We hope that the whole project could start up by the end of this year – if the integrated trial runs were successful,” he continued, adding that commercial production would likely kick off next year.

Germany’s Lurgi provided the core technology for the MTP unit while Lummus Novolen Technology’s (Novolen) provided the process design package and basic engineering services for the PP plant, according to earlier reports from ICIS news.

Shenhua Ningxia Coal Industry Group Co is a joint venture between the Ningxia provincial government and China’s largest coal producer, Shenhua Group Corp, with 49% and 51% stake-holding, respectively.

($1 = CNY 6.83)

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By: Judith Wang
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