Does having tens of millions of tons of oil refining capacity mean there are also millions of tons of ethylene produced?
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Recently, I read in the news about the 13th Five-Year Plans in various regions; several chemical industry cities have proposed plans to develop industries capable of producing tens of millions of tons of oil and millions of tons of ethylene. So here’s the question: 1. Does having tens of millions of tons of oil refining capacity necessarily mean there are millions of tons of ethylene produced as well? I checked online and found that many refineries do indeed operate in this way. For example, Zhenhai, Huizhou, Sichuan... But it seems there is no such thing as cooperation in these cases; for instance, in Jieyang, where there is a 20-million-ton oil refining plant jointly operated by Chinese and foreign parties, I don’t see any production of millions of tons of ethylene. 2. Is naphtha the raw material for ethylene? How many tens of thousands of tons of naphtha are needed to produce millions of tons of ethylene? Can tens of millions of tons of oil refining meet the sufficient naphtha supply?
This post was last edited by ylb913 on 2015-11-18 06:27. “Tens of millions of tons of oil refining, millions of tons of ethylene” was the original concept; it seems that Zhenhai came up with a new idea involving a certain amount of oil refining and a certain amount of ethylene production
The by-products of oil refining must be paired with an ethylene project, and its scale is determined by the oil refining output.
For newly built refineries like Jieyang Petrochemical, it doesn’t seem that there are any ethylene production facilities either
That’s not really the case; many large oil refineries do not have the infrastructure for producing ethylene.
1. Does having tens of millions of tons of oil refining capacity necessarily mean there are millions of tons of ethylene production as well? Answer: Not necessarily. It mainly depends on the source of raw materials, the availability of production facilities, and how the main product lines are arranged. There is a saying in the industry: \"Use oil when it’s appropriate, use olefins when that’s suitable, and use chemicals when necessary.\" China’s three major oil companies have a scientifically sound and sophisticated approach to the selection of product lines such as refining products, ethylene, and aromatics.
Not necessarily; many refineries with a capacity of tens of millions of tons do not produce ethylene. Qingdao Refining & Chemical doesn’t have it.
Starting a project is not something that can be accomplished overnight; many factors play a role, and sometimes the risks are high. At present, the projects in Jieyang have been suspended, and whether to proceed with the ethylene project depends on market conditions.
The project that has just been approved by the Fujian Provincial Development and Reform Commission for the Gulei refining and chemical integration project in Zhangzhou, Fujian – a project involving million-ton-scale ethylene production and downstream processing facilities – does not include oil refining.