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Technical review meeting for Ningxia Baofeng Energy’s 500,000 tons/year coal-to-olefins project held / Author/Source: Chemical Industry Network, Coal Chemicals Section / Date: July 23, 2020 / Clicks: 71. On July 17, the Ningxia Ecology and Environment Engineering Assessment Center organized a technical review meeting for the Environmental Impact Assessment report related to Ningxia Baofeng Energy Group Co., Ltd.’s 500,000 tons/year coal-to-olefins project, and the environmental assessment for this project passed the expert review successfully. This project involves the production and use of hazardous chemicals; therefore, the project owner must comply with laws and regulations such as the Work Safety Law of the People’s Republic of China, and strictly adhere to the safety distance requirements necessary for ensuring safe handling of hazardous chemicals as well as for environmental protection. The design review procedures for the safety facilities related to this hazardous chemicals project must be completed prior to the start of construction. It is reported that Ningxia Baofeng Energy Group Co., Ltd.’s 500,000 tons per year coal-to-olefins project has been listed by the autonomous region as a key construction project for 2020. Adhering to the overall guiding principle of the six priorities and safeguards aimed at \"ensuring basic livelihoods\" and \"stabilizing employment\" in 2020, the Department of Ecology and Environment of the autonomous region promptly included this project in the list of key projects to be advanced. By establishing fast-track procedures, providing proactive support, and getting involved early, it ensures the smooth progress of major projects in the autonomous region through \"two guarantees\" and \"four accelerations\", thereby contributing to the high-quality development of the region’s economy. Next, the Department of Ecology and Environment of the autonomous region will provide further follow-up support for the improvement and revision of the project’s environmental impact assessment report, to ensure that the project passes the environmental impact assessment procedures successfully and can be implemented as soon as possible. Ningxia Baofeng Energy Group Co., Ltd. will subsequently invest in the construction of an additional 500,000 tons per year coal-to-olefins plant, with the construction site located in Area A of the Linhe Comprehensive Project Zone in the Ningdong Energy and Chemical Industry Base. The total investment for the project is 1,377,000 million yuan, of which 1,298,201 million yuan is allocated to construction costs. The project will construct a 1.5 million tons per year coal gasification to methanol plant (4 in operation and 2 as backups), a 500,000 tons per year methanol to olefins plant, a 250,000 tons per year ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymer (EVA) plant, a 300,000 tons per year polypropylene plant, along with the necessary utility systems and auxiliary facilities. Upon completion and reaching full production capacity, the project will primarily have an annual production capacity of 250,000 tons of EVA, or a partial production capacity for low-density polyethylene, as well as 300,000 tons of polypropylene; in addition, it will be able to produce by-products such as propane, C4, C5, and sulfur. The coal required for the project is acquired by the project owner through market-based procurement. The project uses coal as raw material and produces methanol through coal gasification under pressure, shift reaction, and purification, achieving an annual output of 1.5 million tons of MTO-grade methanol. Further processing via MTO units and olefin separation yields 500,000 tons per year of polymer-grade ethylene and propylene. This polymer-grade ethylene and propylene, along with 50,000 tons per year of vinyl acetate purchased externally, are fed into EVA and propylene polymerization units to produce 550,000 tons per year of polyolefin products. By-products include sulfur, mixed C4, C5+, propane, etc. The project also includes the construction of 3 high-temperature and high-pressure circulating fluidized bed boilers with a capacity of 330 t/h each (2 in operation and 1 as backup), along with other utility and auxiliary systems. On July 9, the design meeting for the overall project of Ningxia Baofeng Energy Group Co., Ltd.’s 500,000 tons per year coal-to-olefins facility was held at Tianchen Engineering Co., Ltd. Liu Wanzhou, Vice President of Ningxia Baofeng Energy Group Co., Ltd., and Wang Lei and Guo Gui, Deputy General Managers of Tianchen Company, attended this meeting. Experts and leaders from various equipment departments, as well as relevant personnel from Tianchen Company’s Baofeng project team, attended this meeting. This meeting was held in a hybrid format, combining in-person attendance with online video conferencing. As the overall project management agency, Tianchen Company organized discussions on topics such as the fundamentals of project design and unified engineering standards, ensuring that all agenda items could be addressed successfully and that the project kickoff meeting was a complete success as planned. For its subsequent investments, Ningxia Baofeng Energy Group Co., Ltd. will build a new coal-to-olefins plant with an annual production capacity of 500,000 tons. This plant will utilize space-based pressurized coal gasification technology, DMTO methanol-to-olefins technology, olefins separation technology from the American company KB, high-pressure tubular EVA process, and Spherizone gas-phase fluidized bed technology for polypropylene production.