- The chemical yield of nearly 50 percent has reached
internationally-advanced levels.
- The technology significantly shortens the production
process, lowers production costs and reduces carbon dioxide
emissions.
- Sinopec's next step is to build a million-ton industrial
demonstration plant.
BEIJING, Nov. 17, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- China Petroleum
& Chemical Corporation (HKG: 0386, "Sinopec") has successfully
tested its key project, "Technological Development and Industrial
Application of Light Crude Oil Cracking into Ethylene," this month
at Sinopec Tianjin.
The technology converts crude oil directly into ethylene,
propylene and other chemical products ("crude-to-chemicals") and
realizes the first industrial application of crude oil
steam-cracking technology in China. The milestone is of great
significance to the transformation and upgrading of China's petrochemical industry, also
contributing to achieve "dual carbon" goals.
The crude oil steam-cracking technology is one of the
"crude-to-chemicals" solutions which "skips" the traditional crude
oil refining process to directly convert crude oil into valuable
chemical products like ethylene and propylene – analogous to making
bread directly with wheat and eliminating the flour grinding
process. This approach will greatly shorten the production
process, lower production costs and significantly reduce energy
consumption and carbon emissions.
The technology was developed and engineered by Sinopec's Beijing
Research Institute of Chemical Industry and Sinopec Engineering
Group (SEG) and the industrial testing was carried out at Sinopec
Tianjin. It has applied for 45 Chinese patents for invention and
one international patent for invention. At present, ExxonMobil and
Sinopec are the only two companies to successfully achieve
industrial application of crude oil steam-cracking technology
worldwide. It's estimated that for every 1 million tons of crude
oil processed by this technology, nearly 500,000 tons of chemical
products can be produced, 400,000 tons of which are high-value
products such as ethylene, propylene, light aromatics and
hydrogen. Overall, Sinopec's technology has reached an
internationally-advanced level and presents huge economic value and
potential.
A basic raw material of chemical products, ethylene is coined
the "mother of the petrochemical industry," and is one of the key
benchmarks to measure the development level of a country's
petrochemical industry. As people's living standards continues to
improve, the global demand for chemical products is also growing,
and as basic raw materials, the demand for ethylene and propylene
has also increased accordingly. In general, the raw materials
needed for producing ethylene and propylene must go through the
crude oil refining process at the refineries, the production
process of which is not only longer, but also only 30 percent of
the crude oil is used to produce the chemical raw materials.
Sinopec has always emphasized the R&D and application of
"crude-to-chemicals" technologies. In April
2021, the catalytic cracking technology of crude oil
independently developed by Sinopec's Beijing Research Institute of
Chemical Industry, another "crude-to-chemicals" solution, also
completed industrial application in Yangzhou, which has made
China a leader in catalytic
cracking of crude oil globally.
Similar to the crude oil steam-cracking technology, the chemical
yield of catalytic cracking is also about 50 percent, and combining
the two technologies is expected to increase the total amount of
chemicals produced by crude oil to more than 70 percent, which will
become an economically efficient solution for "crude-to-chemicals"
conversion in the future.
Sinopec is preparing to carry out the development and
engineering design of packaged technology for the production of
ethylene by steam-cracking 1 million tons of crude oil at
its Tahe company in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region,
building an industrial demonstration plant for the direct
production of chemicals from crude oil and establishing a new model
for the transformation and development of China's petrochemical industry.
For the large-scale ethylene project planned for the future, the
crude oil steam-cracking technology will be included in the key
technology comparison and selection scheme, which will provide
strong support to relieve the contradiction between supply and
demand as well as aiding the enterprises' transformation and
upgrading, making greater contributions to achieving 'dual carbon'
goals.
For more information, please visit Sinopec.
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