Should China pursue so many coal chemical projects at the moment?

That can’t be right! At present, China’s coal chemical industry chain is not yet fully developed, and the downstream markets for coal chemical products face various issues in terms of both scale and growth potential. Looking at the coal chemical products that are currently the subject of large-scale investment, they suffer from shortcomings such as a limited range of products, low levels of processing, and short industrial chains. This leads to a sharp increase in the supply of these coal chemical products in the short term, with no adequate channels for their utilization. Therefore, the key to developing the coal chemical industry lies in adjusting its industrial structure.

Of course! Energy is a **vital resource**, and China is relatively short of energy; therefore, a strategy of diversifying energy sources is necessary

You go up, I’ll go up too; everyone is competing for resources.

The key is that the cost of producing oil is too low; coal is a good alternative, right?~

The trend-following phenomenon is quite severe; there is almost no domestic technology, and any that does exist has been developed by adapting foreign technologies.

It needs to be done in an orderly manner; there can’t be a rush

The cost of oil is indeed high at present, but coal chemical industry still has many immature aspects; the most prominent one is gasification technology. Many foreign engineering companies use China as a testing ground for coal chemical technologies, which means that the economic and social benefits brought by coal chemical industry will be significantly reduced as well for energy supply!

There is indeed too much of this going on at the moment. The key issue is that many companies use the guise of coal chemical industry to first acquire coal resources; even before such projects are built, they may have already recouped their costs from selling coal.

Coal chemical industries should be developed; otherwise, many products would have to be imported. However, they should be large-scale and operated on a group basis, with comprehensive planning. Small-scale operations are not advisable, as they not only cause severe pollution but also waste resources.

In fact, technologies such as MTO and MTP in coal chemical processing were already mature abroad back in the 20th century. The reason they weren’t widely used earlier was that oil prices remained relatively low, staying below $50 per barrel for many years. However, in recent years oil prices have soared, even exceeding $100 per barrel. As a result, we need to consider diversifying our energy strategies. The oil and olefins produced through coal chemical technologies would result in losses if oil prices remain below $50 per barrel. Given the current situation, it’s unlikely that oil prices will drop below $50 per barrel, and moreover, we are the second-largest oil importer in the world. That’s why there is concern; that’s why the coal chemical industry has developed, and the downstream products of coal chemical technology have a high added value. The economic benefits are considerable! So in the past one or two years, many companies have wanted to get into coal chemical industry, and the competition has become extremely fierce! However, the risks are also relatively high, as there are no precedents of such operations being carried out domestically. Hehe

That’s completely correct. Even from the perspective of our country’s energy strategy, it would be necessary to invest heavily in this area in the future. However, due to immature technology and the need to rely on foreign sources for key technologies and equipment, the cost of adopting current technologies and equipment is too high, and the expenses involved are excessive, resulting in a situation where we suffer losses while companies that import such technologies and equipment benefit. It would be better for our country to concentrate its efforts and resources on developing 1 to 3 model projects whose economic and technical indicators meet the desired standards, and only then to pursue further development. The approach and process adopted by our country in the 1980s to introduce 4,000 cubic meter-class blast furnaces were likely successful, and now our rate of transformation is much faster than it was back then.