Experts discuss how to overcome the challenges of existing aromatic hydrocarbon plants that lack competitiveness

Thread Content

After 2015, some newly built advanced production facilities were large in scale, highly integrated across the upstream and downstream stages, equipped with advanced technology, and possessed strong competitiveness. These units were put into operation one after another after 2019, and the single-line PX production capacity reached 2 to 3 million tons per year, offering significant economies of scale and cost advantages. In contrast, the aromatic hydrocarbon plants in use before 2015 had an average PX production capacity of around 600,000 tons. Due to the negative perception of PX in previous years, these plants were unable to carry out capacity upgrades, thus missing the best opportunity to develop and strengthen the aromatic hydrocarbon industry. Although these aromatic hydrocarbon plants have been undergoing process optimization and capacity expansion over the years to increase production, their relatively small design scale results in high energy consumption during production. Affected by the downstream market for PX, they are unable to operate at full capacity, which keeps production costs high and significantly reduces their profitability; in some cases, they even incur losses. Experts recommend accelerating the replacement of old and new production capacities on one hand. Relevant policies support these enterprises in reasonably optimizing the layout of the aromatic compounds industry, by leveraging advanced production technologies, taking advantage of integration benefits, consolidating system resources, accelerating the replacement of old with new production capacity, and promoting the transformation and upgrading of the industrial chain. On the other hand, further optimize the development layout of the industrial chains of these enterprises. It is recommended to increase policy support and, through strategic cooperation models such as shareholding, strengthen the development of the downstream PTA and PET industry chains in order to ensure the healthy growth of the aromatic chemicals industry. At the same time, it is recommended that these enterprises actively expand into downstream industrial chains, accelerate the development of production technologies for polyester materials not used in fiber production, such as biodegradable polyesters, solar films, and PET for medical and health applications, as well as their raw materials and products; they should also optimize the structure of their end products in order to enhance their technical and market competitiveness.