Shandong Dongming Petrochemical, China’s largest private (“teapot”) refiner, has reportedly published its first environmental impact assessment for a large refining-petrochemical integration project.
The project is reportedly being pursued within the company’s industrial park in Heze, Shandong province, with crude distillation capacity revised down to 10 million tonnes per year from an originally planned 15 million tonnes, it is reported. It reportedly includes a 1-million-tonne-per-year ethylene unit, a 2.4-million-tonne-per-year paraxylene (PX) unit, and about 30 downstream facilities.
Total investment is reportedly about RMB71.3 billion (about $10 billion), with the disclosure published on August 11.
The project is reportedly centered on high-value-added new materials such as EVA, film-grade HDPE, ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene (UHMWPE), metallocene PP, and POE, and is introduced as a case of transition from a fuel-oriented refiner to a materials-oriented refiner.
As Chinese private refiners continue shifting toward high-value-added petrochemical materials, this is viewed as a case that could affect the global supply structure of new materials.
Whether the environmental impact assessment is approved and the timing of actual construction start are worth watching.