China commissions full-chain ethylene project

The aerial view of the PetroChina Dushanzi Petrochemical Company. [Photo provided to China.org.cn]

The 1.2-million-metric-tons-per-year Ethylene Project at PetroChina Dushanzi Petrochemical Company's Tarim facility hit a major milestone on Thursday, starting up for the first time after the introduction of feedstock.

The project is located in the Shangku Petrochemical Industrial Park in Korla, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. It is the only one among China's first batch of national-level zero-carbon industrial parks primarily focused on the energy-intensive petrochemical industry. 

As the first demonstration project in China's petrochemical industry to implement the green and low-carbon development philosophy across the entire industrial chain, the project is expected to reduce carbon emissions by 1.37 million metric tons annually. 

The project is directly connected to green electricity sources, enabling it to consume 1 billion kilowatt-hours of clean solar power generated by the Tarim oilfield each year. 

It has put into operation the world's second – and China's first – electric-drive system for the three major compressors of an ethylene plant based on independently developed technology. This marks the shift from steam-driven to electrically driven operation, and provides a replicable and scalable Chinese solution for the petrochemical industry's low-carbon transition.

Among the 11 main production units of the project, 10 utilize domestic proprietary technologies, with nine using PetroChina's own technologies, and five new technologies have completed their first industrial scale-up applications.

The project fills the gap in southern Xinjiang's production of high-end new materials such as polyolefins and synthetic rubber, and is expected to foster downstream industrial clusters across the region.

It is also expected to boost the GDP of the Bayingolin Mongol autonomous prefecture by 15%, and indirectly create more than half of the new urban jobs targeted for 2026 in Korla of the prefecture.

With the project in operation, PetroChina Dushanzi Petrochemical Company has become the only ethylene production base in central and western China with an annual capacity of 3 million metric tons.