Progress on the 600,000-ton coal-to-olefins project in Qinghai; Qinghua Group is involved in the project construction

Thread Content

Progress on Qinghai’s 600,000-ton/year coal-to-olefins project; Qinghua Group involved in its construction. Author/Source: Huahua Network – Coal Chemicals. Date: 2018-03-19. Clicks: 26. Recently, Qinghai Mining Group Co., Ltd. held a symposium to discuss technical aspects related to the construction and operation of olefins plants for its 600,000-ton/year coal-to-olefins project. Experts also exchanged insights regarding the construction and operation of olefins plants in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, as well as best practices in building and operating environmentally friendly coal mines and managing environmental protection. A project management inspection team composed of 7 members, including Wang Guiyuan, Secretary of the Party Committee of Qinghai Provincial State-owned Assets Investment and Management Co., Ltd.; Wang Yaqing, General Manager of Qinghai Muli Coal Development Group Co., Ltd., and Wang Zhao, Deputy General Manager; Wang Jiangbo, Chairman of Qinghai Mining Group Co., Ltd., and Wang Gencun, Deputy General Manager, went on the inspection. Huo Qinghua, Chairman of China Qinghua Energy Group Co., Ltd., Zhu Wenjian, Vice President, Sun Yonglu, Deputy Director of the Chairman’s Office, Lei Zhengrong, General Manager of Qinghai Qinghua Group Co., Ltd., and Quan Guojun, Deputy General Manager, accompanied them on the inspection. On the morning of March 11, a symposium on technical expertise in the construction and operation of olefin projects was held under the chairmanship of Wang Jiangbo, chairman of Qinghai Mining Group. At the special invitation of China Qinghua Energy Group, renowned experts from the chemical industry and the field of modern energy chemistry, both from within and abroad, as well as Li Zhijian, assistant to the director of the Petroleum and Chemical Industry Planning Institute, and Zhang Qinggeng, former chairman of Saiding Engineering Co., Ltd. (former director of the Second Chemical Research Institute), made a special trip to attend the conference. Zhu Wenjian, Vice President of China Qinghua Energy Group, Chen Xuewei, Executive Deputy General Manager of Inner Mongolia Qinghua Group, and Lei Zhengrong, General Manager of Qinghai Qinghua Group, attended the meeting as technical experts. Wang Gencun, deputy general manager of Qinghai Mining Group, provided an overview of the 600,000-ton olefin project, the progress made in the preliminary procedures, and the various preparations required before the start of construction. The technical experts present offered their suggestions and insights on various aspects, including the assurance of coal resources and selection of coal types in the construction and operation management of olefin plants; key domestic and international process technologies and related application experiences; control of investment and construction costs and scientific management practices; the introduction of specialized production support management systems; the selection of large-scale key equipment; optimization of product routes and plans; the choice of project management models and the recruitment and training of team members; as well as major production process technologies and lessons learned from the operation and management of core systems. They also drew on the successful experiences and failures encountered by modern coal chemical companies such as Shenhua Group, China National Coal Group, and Datang Group in the construction and operation management of olefin plants over the past few years. In-depth discussions and exchanges were held on these topics. At the discussion session, Huo Qinghua, chairman of China Qinghua Energy Group, said that the group would spare no effort and mobilize all its resources to provide full support for the construction and operation of the olefin project owned by Qinghai Province Mining Group. This support would cover various aspects such as technology, talent, construction, management, as well as experience and lessons learned, in order to accelerate the development of this olefin project in Qinghai Province and ensure progress is made efficiently without unnecessary detours. He also briefed the attendees on aspects such as the guarantee of coal resources for olefin projects, **the latest trends in industrial policies for the coal chemical industry, the development direction of modern coal chemical industries, and how to use market-based standards to carry out project construction and advance project implementation in a practical manner. Wang Guiyuan, Secretary of the Party Committee of Qinghai Guotou, expressed his sincere gratitude to China Qinghua Energy Group for its great attention to this inspection and for the thorough and meticulous support provided. He also thanked all the technical experts for sharing their valuable insights and suggestions regarding the construction of olefin plants. He said that the purpose of this trip, which took the management team on a thorough inspection of the experience in building, operating, and managing olefin plants, was to ensure that the preparatory work before construction is carried out in a more solid, meticulous, and scientific manner. It is necessary to carefully compile, summarize, and analyze the suggestions and recommendations put forward by the experts at this meeting. In line with the goal of \"learning from salt lakes and taking Yulin as a model,\" efforts should be made to thoroughly and meticulously prepare for the project’s commencement. The conceptual ideas proposed by the experts should be integrated throughout the entire project development process, so that it can serve as a model and benchmark for the construction of circular economy projects in Qinghai Province. On the afternoon of March 11, the inspection team along with leaders from Qinghai Qinghua Group visited China Coal Mengda New Energy Chemical Company for a study visit. The visit included tours of the intelligent polypropylene packaging production line, the core DMTO production equipment, the central control room, as well as an overview of the company’s efforts in industrial informatization and operational management related to the construction of smart factories. The use of intelligent plant inspection technologies, monitoring of the operation of large-scale critical equipment, the modernization and standardization of maintenance techniques, 4G mobile communication local area networks, real-time remote work via mobile phones, the development of robots for use in harsh environments, and so on. The high level of intelligent management in the enterprise’s production and production-support systems, as well as in its administrative management systems, impressed all those who came for a visit, giving them a profound sense of the impact brought about by the modern industrial revolution and enabling them to gain a great deal from it. Furthermore, the comfortable working environments, tidy workstations, and pleasant leisure areas that companies continuously upgrade in order to reduce the workload on workers and improve their working comfort reflect a human-centered corporate culture management approach typical of modern enterprises, which truly impressed the visiting students and observers. On the morning of March 12, Huo Qinghua, chairman of China Qinghua Energy Group, accompanied by Wang Guiyuan, secretary of the Party committee of Qinghai Guotou, and their entourage, visited the Erlintu Coal Mine of Inner Mongolia HuiNeng Group, a well-known private enterprise in China. The group visited the central control system for coal mines and the safety monitoring systems for underground operations, coal washing facilities with a capacity of tens of millions of tons, large-scale modern fully mechanized mining systems underground, as well as administrative, logistical and living facilities. During that time, a brief discussion was held; the key personnel in the Erling Rabbit Coal Mine presented information on the mine’s construction and production capacity, the operation of the six major systems underground, measures taken for the protection of the coal mine’s ecological environment and the control of major pollutants, as well as the successful application of modern 4G mobile communication technology in coal mines. The delegation also traveled nearly 4 kilometers underground to reach the production areas of the modern mine. There, they visited sites where large-scale mechanized mining equipment was in use, efficient and safe underground support systems, environmentally friendly spray dust removal devices, as well as underground escape and shelter systems. In this way, they were able to experience up close the green, environmentally conscious, safe, and efficient approaches to environmental protection and coal mining that are characteristic of this large-scale coal mine. In June 2017, the **Ministry of Environmental Protection issued the \"Approval on the Environmental Impact Assessment Report for Qinghai Mining Group Co., Ltd.’s 600,000 tons per year coal-to-olefins project\" (Huan Shen [2017] No. 64), officially approving the project’s environmental impact assessment application. The 600,000 tons per year coal-to-olefins production facility of Qinghai Mining Group Co., Ltd. is located in the Golmud Industrial Park in Golmud City, Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province. It uses coal mined from Yuka, Dameigou, and Muli coal mines as raw material, and employs technologies such as pressurized coal gasification and methanol-to-olefins to produce 600,000 tons per year of products such as ethylene and polypropylene, as well as by-products like sulfur, methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE), and butene. The main components of the project include 10 units such as air separation, pulverized coal gasification, shift reaction, low-temperature methanol washing, methanol synthesis, methanol to olefins (MTO), olefin conversion, polypropylene production, MTBE/butene-1 production, and sulfur recovery. Complementary facilities include thermal power stations, circulating water systems and other auxiliary projects, storage and transportation facilities such as coal silos and chemical storage tanks, as well as environmental protection systems for wastewater treatment and reuse. Qinghai Mining’s 600,000-ton per year olefin project is based on the integrated salt lake metal magnesium project, with the main goal of promoting the sustainable development of salt lake resources. Adhering to the principle of \"determining production based on water availability,\" it addresses fundamentally the issue of finding a use for the large amount of chlorine generated during the development of salt lake resources. The future industrial base will be driven by coal-to-olefins production; downstream of ethylene, polyethylene and EVOC products will be developed primarily, while downstream of propylene, polypropylene and polyacrylonitrile products will be the focus. Priority will be given to establishing four industrial chains: “ethylene-chloroethylene-HDPE/LLDPE/CPE”, “ethylene-vinyl acetate-EVOC”, “propylene-polypropylene-appliances housings/plastic fittings/translucent PP”, and “propylene-polyacrylonitrile-polyacrylonitrile”, in order to create a core framework for the development of a new type of coal chemical industry.