MOSCOW (MRC) -- China is in the process of building a mega petrochemical and refining complex in east China’s Shandong province, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing with reference to local state media reports.
The country started the project in late October, 2020, four months after the USD20 billion project received state approval.
The Yulong project to be built in Yantai, Shandong, China’s hub for independent oil refineries, consists of a 400,000-bpd oil refinery and a 3-MM-ton-per-year ethylene plant, Reuters reported in June.
The project is one of nearly 500 key industrial projects that started construction in Shandong province in October with total investment of 544.7 billion yuan (USD81.26 billion), the newspaper reported.
The report did not provide further detail about the financing for the project or when the construction be will completed.
The complex, with investment led by private aluminum smelter Shandong Nanshan Group, adds to China's recent wave of petrochemical investments, which have been led by the private sector and drawn global giants such as BASF and Exxon Mobil to build complexes in the world's top petrochemical consumer and importer.
As MRC reported before, in late April 2020, ExxonMobil Corp kicked off construction of its USD10 billion petrochemical complex in south Chinese city Huizhou. The complex, which consists of a 1.6 million tonnes per year ethylene facility, is one of the few mega petrochemical projects in China wholly owned by a foreign investor.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,760,950 tonnes in the first ten months of 2020, up by 3% year on year. Only high density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) shipments increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market reached 978,870 tonnes in January-October 2020 (calculated using the formula: production minus exports plus imports minus producers' inventories as of 1 January, 2020). Supply of exclusively of PP random copolymer increased.
MRC