【Haichuan Chemical Accident Update】Pipeline explosion at Shanggu Natural Gas Processing Plant in Shaanxi Province results in 2 deaths and 4 injuries

The Shaanxi Shanggu Natural Gas Plant was approved for construction in June 2015. It is located in Qinhe Town, Yuyang District, Yulin City, Shaanxi Province, covering an area of about 850 mu. Its designed capacity for natural gas processing is 200×108 m3/year (6000×104 m3/day). Leveraging the natural gas resources of Changqing, this facility uses deep cryogenic separation technology to recover ethane and other lighter hydrocarbon components from natural gas, thereby producing products such as ethane, liquefied petroleum gas, and stabilized light hydrocarbons. It was put into operation in Yulin, Shaanxi Province in 2019; it is one of the key projects in Yulin under Shaanxi Province’s plans for 2020, as well as a major project for CNPC’s Changqing Oilfield. It represents China’s first large-scale ethane recovery project, with operations scheduled to begin in 2020.

The Shaanxi Shanggu Natural Gas Plant was approved for construction in June 2015. It is located in Qinhe Town, Yuyang District, Yulin City, Shaanxi Province, covering an area of about 850 mu. Its designed capacity for natural gas processing is 200×108 m3/year (6000×104 m3/day). Leveraging the natural gas resources of Changqing, this facility uses deep cryogenic separation technology to recover ethane and other lighter hydrocarbon components from natural gas, thereby producing products such as ethane, liquefied petroleum gas, and stabilized light hydrocarbons. It was put into operation in Yulin, Shaanxi Province in 2019; it is one of the key projects in Yulin under Shaanxi Province’s plans for 2020, as well as a major project for CNPC’s Changqing Oilfield. It represents China’s first large-scale ethane recovery project, with operations scheduled to begin in 2020.

On March 11, 2020, a ceremony to present the flag to the task force responsible for the preparation for the commissioning of Shanggu Natural Gas Plant was held at the project construction site. The occurrence of this fatal accident will inevitably delay the commissioning process of the Shanggu Natural Gas Plant.

Safe construction, ensure construction safety. Management is the top priority in construction!

It is said to be a meeting; wait for official news

Changqing Oilfield (Yulin) Oil and Gas Co., Ltd. was established in October 2018; its legal representative is Liu Feng. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corporation, and its business scope includes the preparation for the construction of the Shanggu Natural Gas Processing Plant, which is located in Qinhe Town, Yuyang District, Yulin City. The Shanggu Natural Gas Processing Plant project in the Changqing Oilfield is a key construction project of CNPC, with a total investment of 4.6 billion yuan. Leveraging the natural gas resources from the Upper Paleozoic gas reservoirs in the Changqing Oilfield, this project is the first large-scale ethane recovery project in China, with a designed annual processing capacity of 20 billion cubic meters of natural gas. Gao Jinglin, director of the Yulin Emergency Management Bureau, said that the accident resulted in 2 deaths and 4 injuries, with the condition of the injured currently stable. “This was a safety accident that occurred during pressure testing in the construction sector, and it was not a natural gas explosion. ”(Reporter Qi Ming)

On October 18, with the successful installation of the giant towers, all four giant demethanization towers, each weighing 422 tons, part of the China National Petroleum Corporation’s key project—the Changqing Shanggu Natural Gas Processing Plant—were installed successfully in just one attempt. This achievement set a new record for China National Petroleum Corporation’s upstream operations, as it represented the highest, largest, and heaviest tower installations to be put in place successfully in a single attempt. The Shanggu Natural Gas Processing Plant project in the Changqing Oilfield is currently the first large-scale ethane recovery project in China. Based on the natural gas resources of the Changqing Shanggu gas reservoir, this project has an annual processing capacity of 20 billion cubic meters. It features 4 units, each with a processing capacity of 15 million cubic meters per day. The process technology employed includes \"refrigerant cooling + expansion cooling + dual-gas subcooling + low-temperature distillation\" to recover components in the natural gas with molecular weights above C2. The total investment in this project is 4.6 billion yuan, and the annual output amounts to 1.502 million tons, including 1.0527 million tons of ethane, 356,300 tons of liquefied petroleum gas, and 93,000 tons of stable light hydrocarbons. As a key construction project for CNPC, the Changqing Oilfield regards it as a policy-driven initiative aimed at significantly enhancing China’s capabilities in oil and gas exploration and development. As soon as the project design was approved, a project construction leadership team was established under the leadership of General Manager Fu Suotang. Seventy-seven on-site management and technical personnel were assigned from across the oilfield. The leadership team made multiple trips to the site to coordinate and resolve major issues, reviewed the progress of the project on a weekly basis, and worked closely with six participating companies—CNPC First Construction Company, Sichuan Oil Construction Company, Daqing Oil Construction Company, Liaohe Oil Construction Company, Jilin Chemical Construction Company, and CNPC Sixth Construction Company—to ensure that the project would be completed and put into operation by December 30 of this year. As one of the key core equipment in the entire plant, the installation quality and schedule of the demethanization tower directly determine the success or failure of the whole project. Faced with the unprecedented difficulties associated with the manufacturing, transportation to the site, welding and assembly, as well as the safe lifting of the demethanization tower, the processing plant organized its efforts carefully in four areas: urging timely delivery upon arrival at the site, ensuring proper transportation and positioning, carrying out assembly on-site, and implementing scientific lifting methods, to ensure that the tower was lifted into place successfully according to the plan. To organize personnel to enter the factory to monitor and ensure the quality and progress of tower processing, to select the most suitable routes in advance, and to coordinate efforts to ensure that the towers are delivered to the factory on time and smoothly, the project team, while ensuring the appropriate quality and number of workers on site, adopted a working pattern of concentrated welding in stages and three shifts per day and night. During peak periods, over 80 welders worked simultaneously on the main weld lines, tower plates, connections, and lifting lugs, and ultimately completed the welding and assembly of the towers on schedule, with both quality and quantity meeting the required standards. During the construction process, a total of 14.8 tons of welding material were used for the 4 demethanization towers. Due to continuous operation, the idler equipment overheated, resulting in the destruction of 5 idler motors. Especially during the lifting process, in a confined space where the minimum distance between the demethanization tower and the box-shaped columns was less than 1 meter, the project team, supervisors, and other involved parties conducted multiple reviews of the demethanization tower lifting plan and repeatedly calculated the lifting parameters. Ultimately, a lifting technique involving a single crane for lifting and another crane to assist was adopted; 1250-ton crawler cranes, of which only 8 exist nationwide, along with a 400-ton crawler crane, were used to carry out the operation, enabling the successful and smooth lifting of all the towers. (Reporter Yang Wenli, Correspondent Bai Jiajia)

It’s still under construction – how could there be a gas pipeline explosion? These people are willing to say anything just to attract attention.