MOSCOW (MRC) -- China's oil consumption is likely to peak around 2026 at about 16 million barrels per day and that of natural gas by around 2040, reported Reuters with reference to a top executive of Sinopec Corp.
Sinopec's oil peak forecast echoes a prediction by consultancy Rystad Energy in April that cited rapid adoption of electric vehicles as the main cause for global oil demand to peak over the next five years.
Oil will shift eventually to become a raw material for chemicals rather than fuel, Ma Yongsheng, Sinopec's acting chairman told a seminar in Beijing on Sept. 16 that was confirmed by a company representative on Sept. 17.
The top Asian oil refiner will "forcefully promote" green growth of its refining and petrochemical business and remove inefficient and energy-intensive capacities.
"We will accelerate the transition from oil to chemicals and boost production of high-end materials...and raise lower-carbon feedstocks to cut down the carbon footprint throughput the manufacturing cycle," said Ma.
The firm aims to have its average single refinery's crude processing capacity to reach 10 million tonnes per year, or 200,000 bpd, he added, without giving a comparative figure.
China's natural gas consumption is forecast to peak around 2040, when demand is estimated at 620 billion cubic meters, and it will become China's top fossil fuel resource around 2050, Ma said. China sees natural gas a key bridge fuel that is going to expand steadily in demand for the next two decades.
As MRC wrote previously, in August 2021, China Petroleum and Chemical Corp, also known as Sinopec, the world's petrochemical major, launched the first phase of the Gulei refining complex in Zhangzhou city in China’s southeastern Fujian province. The refining complex, a 50:50 joint venture between Sinopec’s Fujian Petrochemical Company Ltd and Taiwan Xuteng Investment Company Ltd, invested 27.8 billion yuan (USD4.28 billion) in the first phase. That will result in an 800,000 tonnes per annum ethylene plant, a 600,000 tonnes per annum styrene unit and seven other downstream petrochemical units, Sinopec said.
Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,396,960 tonnes in January-July 2021, up by 7% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 841,990 tonnes in the first seven months of 2021, up by 29% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymers (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.
China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec Group) is a super-large petroleum and petrochemical enterprise group established in July 1998 on the basis of the former China Petrochemical Corporation. Sinopec Group's key business activities include the exploration and production of oil and natural gas, petrochemicals and other chemical products, oil refining.
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