【Ten Years of Rapid Development in Chemical Equipment】From 2013 to 2023: Lianyungang Builds the World’s Largest EAA Industry Cluster

Thread Content

EAA stands for ethylene-acrylic acid copolymer; it is a high-performance material produced through free-radical polymerization of ethylene and acrylic acid under high temperature and pressure. It is widely used in fields such as photovoltaics, power batteries, sterile food packaging, and pharmaceutical packaging. It plays an important role in helping China achieve its goals of carbon peak and carbon neutrality, as well as in the development of the modern food and pharmaceutical industry. Due to extremely high technical barriers, all EAA in China had to be imported from abroad in the past. On November 30, Satellite Chemical Co., Ltd. and SKGC Co., Ltd. signed a supplementary agreement regarding the second phase of the Zhonghan Corenew Materials (Jiangsu) Co., Ltd. project in Shanghai, deciding to invest an additional 868 million yuan to launch Phase 2 of the EAA project. It is reported that this project will be implemented in the Lianyungang petrochemical industry base, with a construction and operational capacity of 50,000 tons per year for a new EAA production facility, thereby helping Lianyungang to become the world’s largest EAA industry cluster. Through years of development, the industrial foundation of the Lianyungang petrochemical industry base has become increasingly robust, and its industrial chain has grown more complete. It exhibits strong growth potential and offers vast opportunities for development, which has attracted many outstanding domestic and foreign enterprises to set up operations there. Satellite chemistry is one of the outstanding examples in this field. As the leading enterprise in China’s light hydrocarbon chemicals industry, Satellite Chemical took the lead in establishing China’s first complete international ethane supply chain and a million-ton-scale ethane cracking plant for Ethylene production, within the Lianyungang petrochemical industrial base. Thanks to its advantages in raw materials, technology, and green and low-carbon practices, it has become a benchmark company in the C2 industry chain. On June 17 this year, the first phase of the new material project for EAA packaging with a capacity of 40,000 tons, jointly funded by Satellite Chemical and SKGC in an amount of 1.64 billion yuan, was officially launched at the fine chemicals zone of the Lianyungang petrochemical industry base. This is Asia’s first EAA production facility, filling a gap in the domestic market; it plays an important role in enhancing the resilience of China’s high-end new material industry chain and reducing production costs for related downstream industries. Once the second-phase project is put into operation, Lianyungang’s EAA production capacity is expected to reach 90,000 tons. This will drive the development of industries in the upstream and downstream sectors, helping to create the world’s largest EAA new materials industry cluster. It holds great significance for improving the industrial chain of Lianyungang’s petrochemical industry base, as well as for promoting steady progress in foreign trade and investment while enhancing quality.