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China's ethylene construction plans
(Adds Sinochem Quanzhou, updates Sichuan)
April 2 (Reuters) - State-owned Sinochem has got
approval from the National Development and Reform Commission for
preliminary work for a 1.0 million tonnes per year (tpy)
ethylene project in Quanzhou of the southeastern Fujian
province, the company said on its website (www.qpcc.com.cn).
Sinochem started test runs at its 240,000 barrels-per-day
Quanzhou refinery in January.
PetroChina started operation of a 800,000 tpy
ethylene plant in the southwest Sichuan province in the first
quarter of this year.
China, keen to cut its import dependence on ethylene from
near 50 percent currently, will likely add some 8 million tpy
ethylene capacity between 2014 and 2016.
These projects will either be expansion of existing
facilities or greenfield plants through joint ventures with
companies such as Royal Dutch Shell (Xetra: R6C1.DE - news) , Qatar Petroleum
and Kuwait Petroleum Corp.
Industry leader Sinopec Corp contributes about two-thirds of
China's ethylene output, followed by PetroChina and China
National Offshore Oil Co, the parent of CNOOC Ltd (HKSE: 0883.HK - news) .
Ethylene is a key building block for petrochemicals, from
plastics to rubber to synthetic fibre, and also a key factor
driving up demand for refined oil products like naphtha.
The following table lists ethylene plants started since
2009, according to industry sources and Chinese media reports.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Company Location New Capacity Start-up
(tonnes)
--------------------------------------------------------------
SNP/Aramco/Exxon Fujian 800,000 mid-2009
PetroChina Dushanzi 1,000,000 late 2009
Norinco/Zhenhua Panjin 480,000 late 2009
Sinopec/SABIC Tianjin 1,000,000 Jan 2010
Sinopec Zhenhai 1,000,000 Q1 2010
Sinopec/BASF Nanjing 150,000 2011
PetroChina Daqing 600,000 June 2012
PetroChina Fushun 800,000 Oct 2012
Sinopec/SK Wuhan 800,000 July 2013
PetroChina Sichuan 800,000 Q1 2014
------------------------------------------------------------
TOTAL (NYSE: TOT - news) 7.43 mln
Under construction and planned:
------------------------------------------------------------
Sinopec/Exxon/ Fujian 200,000 NA
CNOOC Huizhou 1,000,000 2015/16
Sinopec/Kuwait Zhanjiang 1,000,000 2014
Sinopec* Nanjing 800,000 2015
PetroChina* Lanzhou 1,000,000 NA
PetroChina/Shell (LSE: RDSB.L - news) * Taizhou 1,200,000 NA
Sinopec Hainan 1,000,000 2015/16
Sinopec* Qingdao 1,000,000 NA
Sinochem* Quanzhou 1,000,000 NA
------------------------------------------------------------
TOTAL 8.2 mln
*pending government approval
(Reporting by Judy Hua and Chen Aizhu; Editing by Joyjeet Das)
