The path of green development pursued by Sanning Chemical is spreading across the land of Hubei

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The Path of Green Development at Sanning Chemical Spread Across Hubei Province Author/Source: Sanning Chemical Date: 2022-02-25 Clicks: 22 At the recently concluded 7th Party Congress of Zhijiang City, Yu Feng, Secretary of the Zhijiang City Party Committee, stated in his work report that Zhijiang has ranked among the top 100 county-level economies in the country for two consecutive years, with its competitiveness and influence both increasing significantly on a national and provincial level. How to advance and rank high in the fierce competition among the top 100 counties and cities across the country? How can we mobilize the broader support of the people in pursuit of high-quality development? The private economy is an important pillar of the county economy, and there is a firm consensus across all levels in Zhijiang City regarding its development. In the Yaojiagang Chemical Park in Zhijiang, Hubei, is Sanning Chemical, one of China’s top 500 private enterprises in the chemical industry. As a leading enterprise in the southwestern Hubei region, it promotes regional spatial transformation through transformation and upgrading ； Leverage the “Two Mountains” approach to address the problem of chemical industries surrounding rivers and promote green development at the local level. Now, as it enters a new stage of development, Sanning Chemical aims to become a company worth 100 billion yuan, serving as the \"main engine\" for driving the high-quality development of the economy in Zhijiang County. Willing to take the lead, it blazes new trails and fosters industrial development to drive regional transformation. In the 1970s, Zhijiang County Fertilizer Plant—the predecessor of Sanning Chemical—was established in Yaojiagang. It has evolved from a county fertilizer factory covering less than 200 mu to the modern Sanning Chemical Industry City, which now spans over 7,000 mu. The corporate growth history of Sanning Chemical represents not only a true reflection of China’s marketization process during the reform and opening-up era but also a microcosm of the economic development in the Zhijiang district. Yaojiagang used to be a remote, desolate small village overgrown with weeds. Since the beginning of the new century, economic development has been advancing by leaps and bounds. In 2008, the provincial authorities approved the establishment of the Yaojiagang Chemical Park ； In June 2017, the park was designated by the **National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Finance as a key park for support in circular transformation. In 2022, the completion of the Yaojia Gang 100-billion-yuan industrial park was included in Zhijiang City’s **work report**. As the leading enterprise in the Yaogang Chemical Park, Sanning Chemical is placed under great expectations by Zhijiang City. Li Wanqing, chairman of Hubei Sanning Chemical Co., Ltd., said that thanks to the development and growth of Sanning Chemical and the resulting synergistic effects, more than 50 enterprises have settled along the upstream and downstream stages of its industrial chain, thus creating an intensive and clustered industrial layout. It is understood that during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, Zhijiang will vigorously implement the “Hundred-Thousand-Million” project to help Sanning Chemical become a billion-yuan enterprise. A park worth 100 billion yuan and strong enterprises worth 100 billion yuan – these two goals of 100 billion each reflect the confidence and expectations regarding the high-quality development of Zhijiang’s private economy. Be a pioneer in transformation and upgrading, aiming to become a company worth hundreds of billions. In 2021, Sanning Chemical completed and put into operation its ethylene glycol project, for which it had invested 10 billion yuan over three years. As the largest chemical project ever invested in Hubei Province, this project has enabled a transition from traditional fertilizers to new chemical materials. After nearly half a year of trial operation, the advancement of the process technologies, the quality of the equipment, the level of automation, and the effectiveness of inherent safety measures have all become evident. The cost advantages and economic benefits achieved meet the expected goals, representing a perfect transition from old to new forms of production capacity; it thus serves as another milestone in the development history of Sanning. Sanning Chemical will also become Hubei’s largest chemical park as a result, and rank among the top 10 coal chemical enterprises in China. At the same time, the new amide and nylon materials project, with an investment of 14.6 billion yuan, also began construction in that year. Sanning Chemical is committed to optimizing its industrial structure; it actively collaborates on projects such as Tianci New Materials and Haikexinyuan. By investing 12 billion yuan in new fine phosphorus chemical production facilities, the company aims to achieve deep integration across the entire industry chain, from phosphate rock mining and processing to slurry transportation, fine phosphorus chemical production, and new energy materials. This effort is aimed at creating a complete industrial chain for lithium iron phosphate – starting from phosphate rock, through phosphoric acid, to lithium iron phosphate itself – thereby facilitating the company’s transition toward new materials and new energy sectors. Today, the company’s fixed assets amount to 21.8 billion yuan, and it achieved sales revenue of 17.78 billion yuan last year, a year-on-year increase of 45.2% ； Profit reached 2.43 billion yuan, doubling compared to the previous year ； Taxes paid amounted to 550 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 134.5%. The key to such explosive growth of the private economy lies in transformation and upgrading, as well as innovative development. Starting in 2014, Sanning Chemical was the first in the province to build smart factories, striving to achieve comprehensive intelligent manufacturing and digital transformation. Fewer employees, better equipment, higher efficiency, intrinsic safety, and environmental sustainability – these are the ultimate goals of Sanning in building smart factories. To this end, Sanning has implemented advanced control systems on as many as 15 sets of production equipment. Among them, the caprolactam plant was the first in the country to implement APC advanced process control. The overall level of automatic control, process compliance rate, and product quality of the plant all rank among the leading levels in the domestic industry. Building on full-process intelligent control, the hydrogen peroxide production unit has achieved the first \"black-screen operation\" of its kind in the country, which serves as an important indicator of the improvement in the operation quality and level of intelligent control at Sanning. 5G smart factories are increasingly becoming a new hallmark for Sanning. In 2016, the company was selected as one of the first 14 pilot units for intelligent manufacturing in Hubei Province, and it was the only chemical enterprise in the province to receive this designation. By building smart factories and ultimately achieving digital factories, Sanning Chemical is striving to lead the trends of Industry 4.0. Striving to be a model, the \"Two Mountains\" approach drives green development. Since 2017, Zhijiang in Hubei has taken decisive action to address the problem of chemical industries surrounding the river, ordering that all such enterprises within a 1-kilometer radius of the river be eliminated; thus, a vigorous campaign to tackle this issue was launched. Thereafter, Sanning Chemical took proactive steps to fulfill its corporate responsibilities; with the determination to make a tough decision, it shut down the urea plant located within one kilometer along the river, which generated annual profits of 300 million yuan, and redirected its production capacity to the ethylene glycol project. This approach enabled a transition from old to new forms of production, thus facilitating the transformation and upgrading of the industry. To address the issue of phosphogypsum storage, Sanning Chemical invested 900 million yuan to build a second phosphogypsum storage facility. Built to the highest standards, this new facility covers an area of 2,130 mu, has a designed elevation of 100 meters, and has a total storage capacity of 42.25 million cubic meters – laying a solid foundation for the future development of the company’s phosphorus chemical industry. Last year, through regular inspections, unannounced checks, and drone monitoring in the context of environmental protection efforts, Sanning Chemical was the only company in Hubei Province for which no issues were found regarding phosphogypsum waste dumps. “The call to “comprehensively protect the Yangtze River” has been sounded. Locally, authorities have taken proactive actions and implemented measures in detail; enterprises have risen to the challenges and fulfilled their responsibilities—all of which have become much-talked-about examples for a time. Zhijiang’s collaboration between the government and enterprises, along with multiple measures taken to address the issue of “chemical industries surrounding the Yangtze River”, has been commended by the State Council. Under the overarching principle of environmental protection, make full use of technological innovation to turn waste into treasure and achieve recycling. Sanning Chemical’s utilization rates of coal slag and waste gas are significantly higher than those of companies in the same industry; it makes use of the thermal energy from high-temperature flue gas as well as the heat generated by waste gas to operate waste heat generation units ； Use new technologies to save energy and reduce power consumption ； Achieving energy recovery using process pressure differences ； The low-pressure ligand process is employed to fully recover the reaction heat… through a circular economy industrial chain characterized by close integration and symbiotic coupling among the three sectors of coal chemistry, phosphorus chemistry, and fine chemicals. The circular economy accounts for around 36% of the company’s output value, and alone, resource savings and energy efficiency improvements generate over 200 million yuan in additional value each year. Ying Yong, Secretary of the Hubei Provincial Party Committee, has repeatedly emphasized that making Hubei a beautiful province with green development be an important element in its high-quality growth. In Zhijiang, Hubei, Sanning Chemical is actively exploring development models for a circular economy, and is becoming a \"Zhijiang model\" for a beautiful Hubei with green growth.