Latest construction progress of two coal-to-ethylene glycol plants (10+60) at Xinjiang Tianye

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Latest Progress on the Construction of Two Coal-to-Ethylene Glycol Plants (10+60) at Xinjiang Tianye – Author/Source: Huahua Network, Coal Chemical Industry; Date: 2018-08-24; Clicks: 32. On August 14, construction workers were busy working hard at the site of Tianye’s first-phase project to produce 600,000 tons of ethylene glycol from syngas, a key project under the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps located in the Shihu Tan New Materials Industrial Park in Regiment 147. To date, the resumption rate for construction work on the project has reached 49%, and equipment installation is progressing in an orderly manner; 58% of the installation work on the main equipment, including the ethylene glycol intermediate and finished product tank areas, has been completed. To ensure that this key project could progress smoothly with both quality and quantity met, once work resumed on the project in 2018, it entered an accelerated construction phase right away, and the progress of the work was improved by carrying out construction and equipment installation in a coordinated manner. At present, there are over 1,900 people working on this project, with the overall construction progress for civil works reaching 49%; 29 of the preliminary procedures related to the infrastructure in the park have been completed ； The total value of the equipment delivered amounted to 5.35 billion yuan ； 66.9% of the total investment has been completed. Among them, the completion rate of equipment purchase contracts reached 95%. By September, the construction of these projects will reach its peak, with the number of workers involved increasing to over 3,000, and more than 170 projects under construction at the same time. Of these, 110 major construction projects will be completed and topped out by the end of this year. The three units supporting Xinjiang Tianye’s 100,000 tons per year ethylene glycol expansion project have been successfully tested. Recently, according to Tianye Group’s Tianzhi Chenye, the turbine, booster pump, and air compressor – the three units part of the air separation unit associated with this expansion project – were tested together and succeeded in meeting the design requirements, with all performance indicators being within normal ranges. As the key supporting equipment for this project, the successful first-time commissioning of the three units provided a solid foundation for the commissioning of the main equipment. This project involves the construction of a new air separation unit with a capacity of 40,000 Nm3/h. The three compressors in this unit compress atmospheric air, which is then sent to subsequent processing stages; they are the core equipment that supply raw materials and power to the air separation system. This air separation unit was designed by Kaifeng Air Separation Co., Ltd., and it provides the oxygen, nitrogen, instrument air, compressed air, liquid oxygen, and liquid nitrogen necessary for production. In October 2016, Kaifeng Air Separation Group signed a supply contract with Tianzhi Chenye. The plant utilizes a packing tower, internal compression via liquid pumps, and a pre-purification stage; that is, pre-purification is carried out using molecular sieves at room temperature, an air booster turbine expander provides the cooling required by the plant, air is compressed through expansion, distillation takes place in two towers, and internal compression is achieved via liquid pumps ； The entire air separation unit employs DCS control technology. It is reported that Tianzhi Chenye’s 100,000 tons per year ethylene glycol expansion project builds upon the existing facility by making full use of calcium carbide furnace gas, waste coke powder, and organic wastewater for comprehensive resource utilization. By upgrading and expanding the facility for the production of 100,000 tons per year of ethylene glycol, Tianzhi Chenye will achieve an annual production capacity of 350,000 tons of ethylene glycol. The first phase of Xinjiang Tianye (Group) Co., Ltd.’s project to produce ethylene glycol from syngas at a capacity of 1 million tons per year involves a facility for producing 600,000 tons of ethylene glycol per year. The total investment in this project amounts to 799,721.60 million yuan. The construction site is located in the Shihu Tan New Materials Industrial Park (147th Regiment) in Shihezi, Xinjiang. Construction began in August 2017, with completion and operation expected by October 2019. In October 2017, the project’s gasification technology division entered into a contract with Shanxi Yangmei Chemical Machinery (Group) Co., Ltd. for four sets of 6.5MPa Jinhua furnaces model 3.0; the core process utilizes a patented technology for producing ethylene glycol from high-quality chemical synthesis gas. Xinjiang Tianye (Group) Co., Ltd. currently has a production capacity of 250,000 tons of ethylene glycol per year from synthetic gas; 50,000 tons from the first phase and 200,000 tons from the second phase, with these capacities being put into operation gradually. The second-phase project is located in the North Industrial Zone of Shihezi, Xinjiang, and involves the construction of facilities for producing 200,000 tons per year of ethylene glycol and 170,000 tons per year of BDO, utilizing the off-gases from calcium carbide furnaces in the Xinjiang Tianye Chemical Industry Park as raw materials for comprehensive utilization.