China's indigenous large ethylene unit goes operational

On October 5, the newly built 600kt/a ethylene unit at Daqing Petrochemical, a key part of the company’s 1.2Mt/a ethylene expansion/upgrading project, turned out qualified products, indicating the successful industrialization of the packaged technology for China’s first home-made large ethylene unit. This enables China to be independent from importing technologies for ethylene production which lasted for half a century.

China National Petroleum Corporation’s (CNPC) subsidiary China Huanqiu Contracting & Engineering Corp. which heads the R&D of the packaged technology, successfully developed pyrolysis technology and front-end depropanization and front-end hydrogenation separation technology with their own characteristics.

Meanwhile, the company has mastered several key technologies, realized the localization of materials for major equipment, and formed the packaged technology for large ethylene unit with proprietary intellectual property rights.

After the expansion and upgrading, Daqing Petrochemical will have an annual ethylene productivity of 1.2 million tons, which serves as a strategic step forward for CNPC to optimize its portfolio of refining and petrochemical operations and improve business sustainability.