【History of Haichuan Chemical】A 50-year history from the banks of the Luo River to the South China Sea, from LPEC to GPEC, from Luoyang Institute to Guangzhou Project
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Since its establishment nearly 70 years ago, the Luoyang Branch has expanded its operations northward to Liaoning and Shenyang, competing for dominance in the Central Plains, and southward to the Baiyue region; it has created a beautiful arc across China’s geographical landscape and left behind numerous significant contributions to the development of China’s petrochemical industry. This is Sinopec Guangzhou Engineering Co., Ltd. (GPEC), which, although its main operations have now been moved to Guangzhou, is still referred to as the “Luoyang Branch” by many industry professionals. In today’s article, let’s follow the traces of history and review the development journey of LPEC together. 1| The Hunhe River flows onward. In the previous article on SEI (Born to Rule – How China’s top design institutes were forged?), ), we mentioned earlier that in 1956, the Ministry of Petroleum Industry established the Beijing Design Institute of the Ministry of Petroleum Industry. Also in the same year, October 1956, the Ministry of Petroleum Industry established the Fushun Petroleum Design Institute, whose main task was to handle the design of projects related to the synthetic petroleum industry as well as the development of refining technologies, in order to implement the policy of developing both natural and synthetic oils at that time. Fushun is now rather obscure; few people know that this industrial hub was one of the first municipalities directly under the central government established after the founding of the People’s Republic of China. At the beginning of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the Northeast was the region in China where heavy industry was most concentrated. Fushun was known as the \"Coal Capital,\" and it still has oil production plants built by the Japanese invaders. At the same time, Fushun also has large reserves of \"oil shale,\" which is easy to extract and results in low costs for oil refining. Therefore, it is only logical for the Ministry of Petroleum to establish a design institute here.
Before him, there was already a young man who graduated from the Department of Chemical Engineering at Peking University; he headed north to the banks of the Hun River in pursuit of his dream of working in the oil industry. This man was Mr. Chen Junwu, who later became an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and was awarded the title of \"Model of the Times\". In 1950, the young Chen Junwu arrived at Fushun No. 2 Chemical Plant, a coal liquefaction plant established by Japanese invaders in 1936, which used German high-pressure coal liquefaction technology to produce gasoline and diesel. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, efforts were made to restore and expand the factory, which was renamed an artificial petroleum plant. Chen Junwu’s arrival was truly timely. In 1952, Fushun No. 2 Chemical Plant was renamed Petroleum Plant No. 3. In 1954, 27-year-old Chen Junwu served as the deputy director of the design office at Oil Plant No. 3. After the Fushun Design Institute was established, Chen Junwu was transferred from the Third Petroleum Plant to the Fushun Design Institute to serve as the deputy director of the Process Department. At the beginning of its establishment, Fushun Design Institute used temporary factory buildings for offices, and living conditions were extremely difficult. In 1958, they moved to a new location on Xinhua Street in Fushun City, on the north bank of the Hun River, to conduct their operations there.
The Lanzhou Branch moved from Lanzhou, Gansu to Ningbo, merged with Sinopec Third Construction Company, and became what is now the Ningbo Engineering Company. Nanhua Institute merged with Sinopec Second Company to become today’s Nanjing Engineering Company.
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