China’s newly increased ethylene production capacity increased by 1.4 mln tpa in 2012

As of the end of 2012, the newly increased production capacity of China’s ethylene was 1.4 million tpa and the total production capacity was 17.095 mln tpa rising by 6.3% compared with 2011 and ranking the world second, as per Huidian Research. Seen from the distribution region, China has basically formed the three top ethylene industry cluster areas, namely the Yangtze River Delta, Bohai Rim and Pearl River Delta, the production capacity of which respectively accounts for 26%, 29% and 13% of the total production capacity across the country. In order to adapt to the demand growth of petrochemical products in Midwest, some large ethylene production bases have been accomplished or under the construction in Xinjiang, Gansu, Sichuan and other Midwest regions. With the rising of Central China and implementation of the Great Western Development Strategy, China’s ethylene industry again shows the trend of radiating to the inland from the costal. According to the Ethylene Industry 12th-Five-Year Planning, during the 12th-Five-Year period, there will form 3 to 4 ethylene production bases with the production capacity of more than 2 million tons per year in the Yangtze River Delta centered by Shanghai, Nanjing and Zhenhai of Zhejiang province; the Pearl River Delta will mainly develop the advantageous products and derivative products with high added-value and characteristics; the Bohai Rim will lay out the large ethylene devices centered by Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan and Fushun; the Midwest will form 4 ethylene bases based on large refining projects. After these large ethylene devices are accomplished the construction, the layout of China’s ethylene industry will be more optimized. Building large devices and developing the scale economy are the effective measures for the domestic ethylene industry to achieve the low-cost development strategy. As the relate data show, compared with the 0.5 million-ton ethylene device, the cost of the 1 million-ton devices can reduce about 25% cost per ton. In 2012, the average scale of China’s ethylene devices was further improved and a number of new and renovation & expansion ethylene projects were under the steady progress, among which, both the 1.2 million-ton per year ethylene renovation & expansion project of Daqing Petrochemical and the 0.8 million-ton per year ethylene device of Fushun Petrochemical achieved the success of the first operation; the coal to olefin projects were under the progress in Sichuan, Wuhan and other regions. It is estimated that China’s ethylene production capacity will continue to greatly increase, the average scale of devices will further rise and the production capacity ratio will rise in Southwest and Central China as well as the ethylene layout to be further optimized in 2013. Hudian Research estimates that China’s ethylene production capacity will grow rapidly in the future few years and will reach 30 million tons per year by 2017.