[Ocean Chemical News] Zhejiang Yisheng’s 530,000 tons/year PTA unit is converted to PIA production
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On June 9, the Ningbo Municipal Ecological Environment Bureau issued an announcement on the acceptance of the PTA unit product transformation and upgrading technology transformation project of Zhejiang Yisheng Petrochemical Co., Ltd. The main contents are as follows: Zhejiang Yisheng Petrochemical Co., Ltd. was established in 2003. It is mainly engaged in the production of purified terephthalic acid (PTA). Since its establishment, it has completed four phases of projects and built four sets of PTA production equipment, each with The designed production capacities are 530,000 t/a (Phase 1), 530,000 t/a (Phase 2), 1.5 million t/a (Phase 3), and 1.5 million t/a (Phase 4) respectively. The total designed production capacity of the entire plant is 4.06 million t/a. Due to market and other reasons, the PTA unit of the second phase project has been suspended since the end of 2013. In order to meet the market demand for PIA, Yisheng Petrochemical plans to implement the "Zhejiang Yisheng Petrochemical Co., Ltd. PTA unit product transformation and upgrading technology transformation project". This project has a total investment of 350.85 million yuan to transform the existing second-phase PTA production unit that has been discontinued. By updating and transforming the main equipment and pipelines, it will meet the demand for refined isophthalic acid (PIA) production and form an annual production capacity of 300,000 tons of refined isophthalic acid. Public works will mainly rely on existing related facilities. After the transformation is implemented, this set of equipment will no longer produce PTA products.
According to public information, it is expected that PTA will usher in a new round of production capacity launch cycle from 2020 to 2022. By the end of 2022, PTA has a total production capacity launch plan of 29.3 million tons. The new production capacity will mainly come from the raw material matching of leading downstream companies and the expansion of PTA’s main suppliers. The expansion of PTA production capacity will lead to a reshuffle of the industrial supply pattern, and the era of high prosperity will end. At present, large domestic enterprises such as Tongkun, Rongsheng, Hengli, Hengyi, Shenghong, Sanfangxiang and Xinfengming are still adding or acquiring polyester production capacity. At the same time, they are extending their industrial chain to the upstream raw material industry, and their self-sufficiency capabilities are getting stronger and stronger. However, the equipment scale, technical level and scale of traditional enterprises (except for individual equipment) are obviously lagging behind private enterprises in all aspects. Their competitiveness is at a disadvantage and they have eliminated production capacity. The continuous commissioning of new production capacity by private enterprises will rapidly reduce the market share of polyester raw materials (PX, PTA, MEG) of traditional enterprises. Therefore, some PTA companies are changing production based on this consideration.
According to public information, it is expected that PTA will usher in a new round of production capacity launch cycle from 2020 to 2022. By the end of 2022, PTA has a total production capacity launch plan of 29.3 million tons. The new production capacity will mainly come from the raw material matching of leading downstream companies and the expansion of PTA’s main suppliers. The expansion of PTA production capacity will lead to a reshuffle of the industrial supply pattern, and the era of high prosperity will end. At present, large domestic enterprises such as Tongkun, Rongsheng, Hengli, Hengyi, Shenghong, Sanfangxiang and Xinfengming are still adding or acquiring polyester production capacity. At the same time, they are extending their industrial chain to the upstream raw material industry, and their self-sufficiency capabilities are getting stronger and stronger. However, the equipment scale, technical level and scale of traditional enterprises (except for individual equipment) are obviously lagging behind private enterprises in all aspects. Their competitiveness is at a disadvantage and they have eliminated production capacity. The continuous commissioning of new production capacity by private enterprises will rapidly reduce the market share of polyester raw materials (PX, PTA, MEG) of traditional enterprises. Therefore, some PTA companies are changing production based on this consideration.
Isophthalic acid, also known as PIA (some people call it IPA), is a white crystalline powder or needle crystal. Easily soluble in alcohol and glacial acetic acid, slightly soluble in boiling water but insoluble in cold water, almost insoluble in benzene and petroleum ether. Industrially, isophthalic acid is produced by using m-xylene as the raw material, cobalt acetate as the catalyst, acetaldehyde as the accelerator, and acetic acid as the solvent at low temperature liquid phase oxidation at 120°C under a pressure of about 0.6MPa. In addition, hydrolysis of isophthalonitrile or oxidation of m-xylene with potassium permanganate is also an industrial method for producing isophthalic acid. PIA has strong heat resistance, hydrolysis resistance and chemical resistance, and has preventive uses in alkyd resin coatings, polyester (PET) resin, unsaturated (UPR) resin, special fibers, hot melt adhesives, printing inks, polyester fiber dyeing modification, resin plasticization and medicine.
In 2018, domestic PIA import dependence reached 85%. And based on the total domestic PIA import volume in the past ten years, it still shows a relatively obvious upward trend. The huge supply gap in the PIA industry has brought a glimmer of hope to the sluggish PTA industry, and some companies have started to upgrade their equipment.
1. In August 2018, Jialong Petrochemical plans to convert the 600,000 tons/year PTA unit into a 250,000 tons/year PIA project. 2. Yizheng Chemical Fiber’s 350,000 tons/year PTA unit was converted to produce PIA. 3. On April 3, 2019, Zhejiang Yisheng Petrochemical Co., Ltd. implemented the "PTA unit product transformation and upgrading technical transformation" for the existing PTA second-phase production unit and made an environmental impact assessment announcement. The second phase of the PTA production unit (with an annual output of 700,000 tons of PTA) will be transformed, using high-temperature liquid phase technology, to produce 350,000 tons/year of PIA products. 4. In July 2017, Taiwan Chemical Industry (Ningbo) Co., Ltd.’s new 200,000-ton PIA project passed the environmental impact assessment. The project adopted medium-temperature oxidation and hydrogenation refining process technology.
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