Inner Mongolia Baofeng Coal-based New Materials Co., Ltd. submits an application for approval of a coal chemical demonstration project costing 47.8 billion yuan

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Inner Mongolia Baofeng Coal-based New Materials Co., Ltd. is a subsidiary established in Inner Mongolia by Ningxia Baofeng Energy Group Co., Ltd., using its own funds of RMB 950 million, in partnership with its wholly-owned subsidiary, Ningxia Baofeng Energy Group Olefin Plant Co., Ltd. Ningxia Baofeng Energy plans to use Inner Mongolia Baosan Coal-based New Materials Co., Ltd. as the core entity, and to combine this with the construction of an integrated new energy demonstration project that incorporates wind, solar, hydrogen, and storage technologies. The goal is to reduce the amount of methanol that needs to be purchased from external sources, thereby stabilizing the production capacity of olefins, while also achieving carbon emission reductions through the use of green electricity, green oxygen, and green hydrogen. An investment of around 47.815 billion yuan is planned for the construction of an innovative demonstration project for carbon emission reduction through the integration of green hydrogen and coal chemical processes at the Tukeng Industrial Zone in Wushen Banner, Ordos City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. This project will enable the production of 3 million tons of olefins per year. The key processing unit, DMTO, will utilize technology developed by the Dalian Institute of Physics and Chemistry; the scale of this technology for a single production line is 1 million tons per year. It is possible to convert 2.65 tons of pure methanol into 1 ton of olefins. In this project, the amount of crude methanol used will be 7.8053 million tons per year, which corresponds to 7.4150 million tons of pure methanol per year. The resulting olefin production will be 2.7946 million tons per year (including C4 compounds recovered during olefin separation). Through the implementation of the integrated wind, solar, hydrogen, and storage project, this initiative adopts a plan for the incremental supply of green hydrogen (with an insertion period of 10 years, with additions made on an annual basis; the maximum amount of green hydrogen to be added in the 10th year is 2.515 billion m3 per year). While keeping the consumption of raw coal unchanged, this approach enables an increase in methanol production (by 1.2289 million tons per year), along with a gradual reduction in carbon emissions. It thus facilitates both an increase in methanol production and the low-carbon, sustainable development of modern coal chemical industries, thereby enhancing social benefits, environmental benefits, and economic efficiency. Inner Mongolia Baofeng Coal-based New Materials Co., Ltd.’s Innovative Demonstration Project on Carbon Emission Reduction through the Coupling of Green Hydrogen and Coal Chemistry
Project Category: According to the “Catalogue for Classified Management of Environmental Impact Assessments of Construction Projects (2021 Edition),” this project falls under “22. Petroleum, Coal, and Other Fuel Processing Industry, 25 – 42 Coal Processing, 252” as well as “213. Chemical Raw Materials and Chemical Products Manufacturing Industry, 26 – 44 Synthetic Material Manufacturing, 265”.
Nature of Construction: New construction
Location: Tuk Industrial Project Area, Sulihe Economic Development Zone, Wushen Banner, Ordos City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region
Constructor: Inner Mongolia Baofeng Coal-based New Materials Co., Ltd.
Land Area: 594.4 hectares
Total Number of Employees: 3,500
Total Investment Amount: The approved total investment is 478,146.1 million yuan, of which the construction cost (including value-added tax) amounts to 443,129.8 million yuan, interest during the construction period is 31,531.8 million yuan, and working capital required for startup is 34,845 million yuan (these figures are based on normal operating conditions).
Operating Hours: 8,000 hours per year
Scale of Construction: The project involves the construction of 3 x 2.2 million tons/year methanol production units (including 7 x 110,000 Nm3/h oxygen generation systems, 3 x 562,000 Nm3/h gasification, reforming, heat recovery, and purification units, and 3 x 65,000 tons/year sulfur recovery units); 3 x 1 million tons/year methanol-to-olefins production units (including olefin separation systems); 3 x 500,000 tons/year polypropylene production units; 3 x 550,000 tons/year polyethylene production units; 250,000 tons/year C4-based 1-butene production unit; and 290,000 tons/year steam cracking units. The main products of the project are polyethylene and polypropylene, while the by-products include sulfur, MTBE, fuel oil, heavy naphtha, and C5, among others. The raw coal and fuel coal for the project both come from the nearby Hulusu Coal Mine, and are transported into the plant mainly via conveyor belts on the coal transfer trestle. The project is based on a coal-to-olefins facility with an annual capacity of 2.6 million tons. A separate electrolysis water-to-hydrogen plant is built as part of this setup, and it supplies hydrogen and oxygen on an annual basis. The hydrogen produced is directly fed into the methanol synthesis unit, thereby reducing the load on the conversion and heat recovery units – conversion being the process by which CO reacts with H2O to produce H2 and CO2, in order to achieve the desired H2/CO ratio for the subsequent methanol synthesis reaction – and this helps to reduce CO2 emissions from the process system. The oxygen supplied serves as oxygen for gasification. With the coal consumption remaining constant, the production of domestically produced methanol is increased by adding hydrogen and oxygen year by year; by the tenth year of hydrogen supplementation, the output of such methanol is sufficient to meet the demand for methanol in olefin production, while simultaneously achieving a year-by-year reduction in CO2 emissions. The main process of this project involves pressurized gasification of raw coal using water-coal slurry (in a quenching process), followed by conversion and purification to produce purified gas. This purified gas is mixed with hydrogen generated by electrolysis of water, to serve as the feed gas for methanol synthesis. MTO-grade methanol is produced through low-pressure methanol synthesis technology, and then polyethylene and polypropylene products are obtained by polymerizing polyethylene-grade ethylene and polypropylene-grade propylene respectively. To make rational use of various by-products, ethane, propane produced as by-products of olefin separation, and the saturated light hydrocarbons generated as by-products of the production of 1-T olefins are subjected to steam cracking to increase the yield of ethylene and propylene; the mixed C4 by-products from the olefin separation process are separated to obtain 1-butene, which is used as a raw material for polypropylene production.