PaoFeng Energy’s first production line of the olefin project in Inner Mongolia begins trial operation
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On November 25, 2024, Baofeng Energy issued a statement announcing the trial production of the first production line of its olefin project in Inner Mongolia. Recently, the 1 million tons per year olefin production line in the first phase of Inner Mongolia Baofeng Coal-based New Materials Co., Ltd. – a subsidiary of Ningxia Baofeng Energy Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as the “Company”) – for its 3 million tons per year olefin production project (hereinafter referred to as the “Inner Mongolia Project”) began trial production, and qualified products were successfully manufactured. As of the date of release of this announcement, the first production line of Baofeng Energy’s olefin project in Inner Mongolia was operating stably. 1) The Inner Mongolia project utilizes a combined production process that integrates green hydrogen with modern coal chemical technology. Its total olefin production capacity is 3 million tons per year, making it the largest coal-based olefin production facility in the world to date. It is also the only facility in the world where green hydrogen is used on a large scale to replace fossil fuels in the production of olefins ； 2) Upon completion of the project, the company’s total production capacity for coal-based olefins will increase significantly from the current 2.2 million tons per year to 5.2 million tons per year, which is approximately 2.4 times the current capacity; this will place it at the top of the domestic coal-based olefins industry in terms of production capacity ； 3) Coal-based olefins still hold a cost advantage over the mainstream oil-based olefins, and the Inner Mongolia project is highly competitive in the industry in terms of raw materials, depreciation, and processing costs.
The overall processing flow for this project is as follows: (1) The project uses local coal as raw material; first, crude gas is produced through the water-coal slurry pressurized gasification technology. Then, the crude syngas is purified using sulfur-resistant shift and heat recovery processes, as well as low-temperature methanol washing. The purified syngas is subsequently used in methanol synthesis to produce MTO-grade methanol. The gasification units, shift and heat recovery units, low-temperature methanol washing units, and methanol synthesis units involved in this project all belong to three different series. At the same time, the project will include an electrolytic water hydrogen production facility; this facility generates electrolytic hydrogen and electrolytic oxygen. The electrolytic hydrogen is combined with the purified gas produced by the low-temperature methanol washing unit to serve as the feed gas for methanol synthesis, while the electrolytic oxygen is fed into the gasification unit as an oxidizing agent for gasification. The electrolytic water hydrogen production unit constructed as part of this system is designed for hydrogen replenishment over a period of ten years; the conversion depth of the conversion and heat recovery units, as well as the load of the methanol synthesis unit, will be adjusted accordingly based on the amount of hydrogen required for replenishment. (2) The MTO-grade methanol produced in-house and that is purchased for initial hydrogenation is used to generate MTO reaction gas through methanol-to-olefins technology; polymer-grade ethylene and propylene, as well as by-products such as ethane, propane, C4, and C5, are produced via olefin separation ； The polymeric-grade ethylene and propylene produced are sent to downstream polyethylene and polypropylene plants where polyethylene and polypropylene products are manufactured respectively. The DMTO unit, olefin separation unit, polypropylene plant, and polyethylene plant associated with this project all belong to three different series; the MTO-grade methanol required by the DMTO unit for initial hydrogen supplementation will be purchased from external sources. (3) To make full use of the ethane, propane, and C4 produced as by-products of the olefin separation unit, the project includes the construction of a steam cracking unit and a C4-to-1-butene unit. The cracking product gas generated by the steam cracking unit is fed back to the olefin separation unit, while the 1-butene produced by the C4-to-1-butene unit is used as a comonomer in the polyethylene production unit. Both units also produce by-products such as MTBE, heavy C4, and fuel oil.
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