Following China's successful development of a new generation of methanol to light olefins technology, and successfully completed the 10,000-ton industrialization test, on August 8 this year, Shenhua Baotou with domestic technology of 600,000 tons/year methanol-based low-carbon olefin project was successful. Produce polypropylene, polyethylene end products. This makes China's methanol to low-carbon olefin technology and industrialization level in the forefront of the world. At the same time, the enthusiasm for the construction of methanol-based low-carbon olefins projects is also heating up. According to rough statistics, the total production capacity of methanol-based low-carbon olefins projects under construction currently in place has reached 12 million tons, and another 10 sets of million-ton dimethyl ether projects have been changed to methanol-based low-carbon olefin projects. If all these projects are implemented, the production capacity of methanol-based low-carbon olefins in China will reach 18 million tons, which is equivalent to the current domestic total olefin production capacity.
The status of hot methanol-based low-carbon olefin projects across the country has attracted the attention of the relevant state departments. Not long ago, the State Ministry of Industry and Information Technology organized an expert team to investigate the situation of methanol-based low-carbon olefins projects around the country, and focused on the support conditions for water resources, environmental capacity, and ecological conditions for the construction of methanol-based low-carbon olefins projects in western coal-rich provinces. The survey results will become the main basis for the national layout of methanol to low-carbon olefins projects.
Will methanol-based low-carbon olefins become a dark horse that stirs industrial change in the 12th Five-Year Plan?
Breaking the monopoly breakthrough
“Because the petroleum route is often 10 million tons of oil refining supporting 1 million tons of ethylene, while 90% of China's refining and chemical industry is in the hands of a few enterprises such as Sinopec and PetroChina, resulting in a de facto monopoly industry in China's olefin industry. The promotion and application of olefin technology will fundamentally change this pattern.†Lu Zhihui, general manager of Dalian Institute of Chemical Technology, Dalian Institute of Chemical Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, told CCIN reporters.
According to Lu Zhihui, as an intermediate for hazardous chemicals and basic chemical raw materials, the country has strict restrictions on the production, management, and import and export of olefins. Over the years, China’s olefin production, operation, and import and export operations have been controlled by PetroChina and Sinopec’s two giants. Combined with limited refining capacity, China’s long-term production of olefins has been insufficient. The annual supply and demand gap has reached more than 20 million tons. Among them, the most commonly used basic chemical raw materials, polypropylene and polyethylene, have a self-sufficiency rate of only 67.3% and 54.5% respectively. After the promotion and application of methanol-based low-carbon olefin technology, as the raw materials used are highly market-oriented methanol products, as long as the national policy is liberalized, various localities can, as appropriate, plan and construct olefin devices based on water resources, environmental capacity, and market supply and demand conditions. Judging from the current situation, once the national policy is liberalized, China's methanol production of low-carbon olefins can reach 10 million tons in 3 to 5 years. During the “Thirteenth Five-Year Plan†period, the production capacity of methanol-based low-carbon olefins will even exceed the olefin production capacity of the petroleum route, becoming the leading product in the domestic olefins market.
Dr. Liu Zhongmin, a researcher of the Dalian Institute of Chemicals, and a chief scientist of methanol to light olefins, listed three major advantages of methanol to olefins: First, the methanol plant has no emissions and is an environmental protection project. Second, methanol-to-olefin feedstocks have a wide range of sources of methanol and are highly competitive. Third, methanol to olefins can largely replace the increasingly precious and scarce petroleum resources, achieve energy diversification and ensure the national energy strategic security. Therefore, he believes that no matter from the perspective of energy conservation and emission reduction, or from the perspective of adjusting and optimizing industrial structure, reducing pollutant emissions, reducing China's dependence on foreign oil, and breaking the monopoly pattern of petroleum routes, the production of methanol-based low-carbon olefins Are the trend of the times.
Nourish the source of downstream products
The promotion and application of methanol-based low-carbon olefin technology will have major impact on the chemical sub-sectors? "The fine chemical industry will undoubtedly benefit the most." Lu Zhihui said.
According to Lv Zhihui, prior to this, due to the serious shortage of olefins products in China, the prices were high and were mainly controlled by Sinopec and PetroChina, making the production costs of downstream fine chemical products high, and the source of raw materials was not guaranteed. The enthusiasm of the two major groups for the production of fine chemical products is not high, resulting in a small scale, backward technology, and a small variety of products in the fine chemical industry in China. Many products have to rely on imports for a long time. After the promotion and application of methanol-based low-carbon olefin technology, once the monopoly of business is broken, related companies can not only obtain olefin products through multiple channels, they can even build their own factories, use methanol as raw material to produce olefins, and then use ethylene and propylene as raw materials for further processing and production. There are thousands of fine chemical products such as diols, allyl alcohol, polystyrene, and vinyl chloride. This trend will also force the two petrochemical giants to shift more energy to the development of high value-added, high-tech fine chemical products.
Fang Dejun, chief engineer of the National Chemical Industry Productivity Promotion Center, disclosed to the CCIN reporter that the fixed-bed methanol-based low-carbon olefin technology developed by the National Chemical Industry Productivity Promotion Center, Tsinghua University, and Chengdu Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, was used as a catalyst. Pilot tests have been completed and industrial trials are underway. Once the industrialization test is successful and applied, it can provide more inexpensive olefinic raw materials for fine chemical product manufacturers and promote the development of fine chemical industry. More importantly, the process technology can simultaneously produce olefins, aromatic hydrocarbons, alkanes, and more than a dozen organic chemicals. If it is further reacted with raw materials such as acetic acid, benzene, or toluene, polyvinyl alcohol and vinyl acetate can be derived. Xylene and other fine chemical products.
Expert predictions are turning into reality
On September 27th, Shaanxi Weihe Coal Chemical Group and China Hualu Engineering Technology Co., Ltd. formally signed an EPC engineering design, procurement and construction contract framework agreement for the Acetate Acetate Acetate Project. Suihua Group deputy general manager and chief engineer Wang Huimin told CCIN reporters that after the Suihua Group's new methanol project is put into operation, it will build a 200,000 tons of methanol to make low-carbon olefins to form methanol-acetic acid-acetic anhydride; methanol-ethylene/ Propylene; ethylene + acetic acid - vinyl acetate - EVA and other three major industrial chains, and propylene - polypropylene - downstream processing and "triphenyl" and several other auxiliary industrial chain, more than 70% of the products are high value-added fine chemicals product.
According to the CCIN reporter, enterprises that plan the development of fine chemical products with the opportunity brought by the methanol-based low-carbon olefin technology will not only be a member of the Suihua Group. A company in Dalian plans to use imported methanol as raw material and two 600,000-ton/year methanol-made low-carbon olefins projects in Jiangsu. Its end products are fine chemical products such as ethylene glycol and ethylene oxide; a company in Shandong plans to The methanol-to-lower olefins project, the end product is locked in ***, ethylene oxide and acrylate; a total investment of 10 billion US dollars in the Shenhua Dow Chemical Co., Ltd. project, its products include ethylene oxide, ethylene amines , polyether polyols, acrylics, and more than 20 kinds of fine chemical products.
Push of product structure adjustment
Experts interviewed also revealed a major message: methanol to light olefins will bring a huge impact on the calcium carbide process polyvinyl chloride industry.
It is understood that since the 21st century, with the sharp rise in the price of international oil, the cost advantages of calcium carbide process polyvinyl chloride continue to appear, and the production capacity has expanded rapidly. China Chlor-Alkali Industry Association statistics show that in 2009, China's polyvinyl chloride production reached 9,154,900 tons, and production capacity reached 17.81 million tons. Among them, the proportion of PVC produced by calcium carbide in the total capacity of PVC has risen from less than 50% at the end of the last century to 76%. It is expected that by the end of this year, the proportion of polyvinyl chloride by calcium carbide process will exceed 80%.
The reason why the calcium carbide process polyvinyl chloride develops rapidly in our country is mainly due to the rich and cheap coal resources and power resources in the western part of China, as well as the previously relatively loose energy conservation and environmental protection policies. In addition, the continuous rise in the price of oil has led to a dramatic increase in the cost of ethylene-based polyvinyl chloride, which has widened the cost gap with polyvinyl chloride produced by calcium carbide process and has also become a powerful promoter of the rapid development of polyvinyl chloride. However, with the continuous improvement of national energy conservation and environmental protection regulations, the cost of environmental protection, safety, and procurement of raw materials for PVC enterprises with "two high and one capital" characteristics have increased substantially. The cost gap between them and ethylene-based polyvinyl chloride is increasing. Keep shrinking. If the methanol-to-lower olefin technology can be applied, the original PVC production enterprises that have difficulty obtaining ethylene resources will easily obtain lower-cost ethylene raw materials and adopt the ethylene oxide chlorination process with low pollution and low energy consumption. Produce high-quality PVC and compete with calcium carbide PVC.
“According to the current cost of methanol-based low-carbon olefins, the ethylene production of polyvinyl chloride from methanol-based low-carbon olefins technology has a cost advantage of more than 10% over the calcium carbide method. With the increase in the degree of national elimination of backward production capacity, in particular, After canceling the preferential electricity price policy originally enjoyed by the high-energy-consuming industries, the cost of calcium carbide process PVC will inevitably rise sharply with the rise in the prices of calcium carbide, coke and electricity. It can be foreseen that the process of industrialization of methanol-based low-carbon olefins will be foreseen. Accelerated, more PVC enterprises will adopt the ethylene process, and the momentum of excessive growth of PVC production by calcium carbide process will be curbed, and the proportion of calcium carbide process polyvinyl chloride will also gradually decrease until the PVC market is completely withdrawn. Lv Zhihui analyzed this.
Liu Zhongmin also bluntly stated that with the promotion of methanol-based low-carbon olefin technology, the largest impact may be the western calcium carbide method polyvinyl chloride enterprises. He said that in recent years, western provinces have built large-scale coal-to-methanol projects to develop the economy. However, due to the impact of the financial crisis and the impact of imported methanol, it was difficult for the western methanol to be sold to the East China and South China regions, resulting in a very serious overcapacity of methanol in the western region and an ever-widening loss in the industry. In order to revitalize the huge amount of capital invested in the construction of the methanol project, after the successful industrialization demonstration project of methanol-based low-carbon olefin technology, the western provinces will rush to launch the methanol-to-metal olefin project to achieve the nearest, high-efficiency and high-addition of methanol and coal. Value conversion. The expansion of production capacity of methanol-based low-carbon olefins will inevitably bring a large amount of cheap ethylene raw materials to PVC enterprises, further reducing the cost of ethylene PVC companies in the western region and enhancing their competitiveness. On the contrary, with the increasingly stringent national environmental protection policies, the prices of calcium carbide, PVC, electricity, and coal, which are required for the calcium carbide process, will also rise sharply, while the large amounts of hydrogen chloride and calcium carbide slag produced during the calcium carbide process , waste water, and waste gas will all increase the company's environmental pressure and environmental protection investment, increase its overall cost, and make it more cost-competitive than that of ethylene-based polyvinyl chloride. It will eventually be inferior to ethylene-based polyvinyl chloride and be forced to qiut the market.
The status of hot methanol-based low-carbon olefin projects across the country has attracted the attention of the relevant state departments. Not long ago, the State Ministry of Industry and Information Technology organized an expert team to investigate the situation of methanol-based low-carbon olefins projects around the country, and focused on the support conditions for water resources, environmental capacity, and ecological conditions for the construction of methanol-based low-carbon olefins projects in western coal-rich provinces. The survey results will become the main basis for the national layout of methanol to low-carbon olefins projects.
Will methanol-based low-carbon olefins become a dark horse that stirs industrial change in the 12th Five-Year Plan?
Breaking the monopoly breakthrough
“Because the petroleum route is often 10 million tons of oil refining supporting 1 million tons of ethylene, while 90% of China's refining and chemical industry is in the hands of a few enterprises such as Sinopec and PetroChina, resulting in a de facto monopoly industry in China's olefin industry. The promotion and application of olefin technology will fundamentally change this pattern.†Lu Zhihui, general manager of Dalian Institute of Chemical Technology, Dalian Institute of Chemical Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, told CCIN reporters.
According to Lu Zhihui, as an intermediate for hazardous chemicals and basic chemical raw materials, the country has strict restrictions on the production, management, and import and export of olefins. Over the years, China’s olefin production, operation, and import and export operations have been controlled by PetroChina and Sinopec’s two giants. Combined with limited refining capacity, China’s long-term production of olefins has been insufficient. The annual supply and demand gap has reached more than 20 million tons. Among them, the most commonly used basic chemical raw materials, polypropylene and polyethylene, have a self-sufficiency rate of only 67.3% and 54.5% respectively. After the promotion and application of methanol-based low-carbon olefin technology, as the raw materials used are highly market-oriented methanol products, as long as the national policy is liberalized, various localities can, as appropriate, plan and construct olefin devices based on water resources, environmental capacity, and market supply and demand conditions. Judging from the current situation, once the national policy is liberalized, China's methanol production of low-carbon olefins can reach 10 million tons in 3 to 5 years. During the “Thirteenth Five-Year Plan†period, the production capacity of methanol-based low-carbon olefins will even exceed the olefin production capacity of the petroleum route, becoming the leading product in the domestic olefins market.
Dr. Liu Zhongmin, a researcher of the Dalian Institute of Chemicals, and a chief scientist of methanol to light olefins, listed three major advantages of methanol to olefins: First, the methanol plant has no emissions and is an environmental protection project. Second, methanol-to-olefin feedstocks have a wide range of sources of methanol and are highly competitive. Third, methanol to olefins can largely replace the increasingly precious and scarce petroleum resources, achieve energy diversification and ensure the national energy strategic security. Therefore, he believes that no matter from the perspective of energy conservation and emission reduction, or from the perspective of adjusting and optimizing industrial structure, reducing pollutant emissions, reducing China's dependence on foreign oil, and breaking the monopoly pattern of petroleum routes, the production of methanol-based low-carbon olefins Are the trend of the times.
Nourish the source of downstream products
The promotion and application of methanol-based low-carbon olefin technology will have major impact on the chemical sub-sectors? "The fine chemical industry will undoubtedly benefit the most." Lu Zhihui said.
According to Lv Zhihui, prior to this, due to the serious shortage of olefins products in China, the prices were high and were mainly controlled by Sinopec and PetroChina, making the production costs of downstream fine chemical products high, and the source of raw materials was not guaranteed. The enthusiasm of the two major groups for the production of fine chemical products is not high, resulting in a small scale, backward technology, and a small variety of products in the fine chemical industry in China. Many products have to rely on imports for a long time. After the promotion and application of methanol-based low-carbon olefin technology, once the monopoly of business is broken, related companies can not only obtain olefin products through multiple channels, they can even build their own factories, use methanol as raw material to produce olefins, and then use ethylene and propylene as raw materials for further processing and production. There are thousands of fine chemical products such as diols, allyl alcohol, polystyrene, and vinyl chloride. This trend will also force the two petrochemical giants to shift more energy to the development of high value-added, high-tech fine chemical products.
Fang Dejun, chief engineer of the National Chemical Industry Productivity Promotion Center, disclosed to the CCIN reporter that the fixed-bed methanol-based low-carbon olefin technology developed by the National Chemical Industry Productivity Promotion Center, Tsinghua University, and Chengdu Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, was used as a catalyst. Pilot tests have been completed and industrial trials are underway. Once the industrialization test is successful and applied, it can provide more inexpensive olefinic raw materials for fine chemical product manufacturers and promote the development of fine chemical industry. More importantly, the process technology can simultaneously produce olefins, aromatic hydrocarbons, alkanes, and more than a dozen organic chemicals. If it is further reacted with raw materials such as acetic acid, benzene, or toluene, polyvinyl alcohol and vinyl acetate can be derived. Xylene and other fine chemical products.
Expert predictions are turning into reality
On September 27th, Shaanxi Weihe Coal Chemical Group and China Hualu Engineering Technology Co., Ltd. formally signed an EPC engineering design, procurement and construction contract framework agreement for the Acetate Acetate Acetate Project. Suihua Group deputy general manager and chief engineer Wang Huimin told CCIN reporters that after the Suihua Group's new methanol project is put into operation, it will build a 200,000 tons of methanol to make low-carbon olefins to form methanol-acetic acid-acetic anhydride; methanol-ethylene/ Propylene; ethylene + acetic acid - vinyl acetate - EVA and other three major industrial chains, and propylene - polypropylene - downstream processing and "triphenyl" and several other auxiliary industrial chain, more than 70% of the products are high value-added fine chemicals product.
According to the CCIN reporter, enterprises that plan the development of fine chemical products with the opportunity brought by the methanol-based low-carbon olefin technology will not only be a member of the Suihua Group. A company in Dalian plans to use imported methanol as raw material and two 600,000-ton/year methanol-made low-carbon olefins projects in Jiangsu. Its end products are fine chemical products such as ethylene glycol and ethylene oxide; a company in Shandong plans to The methanol-to-lower olefins project, the end product is locked in ***, ethylene oxide and acrylate; a total investment of 10 billion US dollars in the Shenhua Dow Chemical Co., Ltd. project, its products include ethylene oxide, ethylene amines , polyether polyols, acrylics, and more than 20 kinds of fine chemical products.
Push of product structure adjustment
Experts interviewed also revealed a major message: methanol to light olefins will bring a huge impact on the calcium carbide process polyvinyl chloride industry.
It is understood that since the 21st century, with the sharp rise in the price of international oil, the cost advantages of calcium carbide process polyvinyl chloride continue to appear, and the production capacity has expanded rapidly. China Chlor-Alkali Industry Association statistics show that in 2009, China's polyvinyl chloride production reached 9,154,900 tons, and production capacity reached 17.81 million tons. Among them, the proportion of PVC produced by calcium carbide in the total capacity of PVC has risen from less than 50% at the end of the last century to 76%. It is expected that by the end of this year, the proportion of polyvinyl chloride by calcium carbide process will exceed 80%.
The reason why the calcium carbide process polyvinyl chloride develops rapidly in our country is mainly due to the rich and cheap coal resources and power resources in the western part of China, as well as the previously relatively loose energy conservation and environmental protection policies. In addition, the continuous rise in the price of oil has led to a dramatic increase in the cost of ethylene-based polyvinyl chloride, which has widened the cost gap with polyvinyl chloride produced by calcium carbide process and has also become a powerful promoter of the rapid development of polyvinyl chloride. However, with the continuous improvement of national energy conservation and environmental protection regulations, the cost of environmental protection, safety, and procurement of raw materials for PVC enterprises with "two high and one capital" characteristics have increased substantially. The cost gap between them and ethylene-based polyvinyl chloride is increasing. Keep shrinking. If the methanol-to-lower olefin technology can be applied, the original PVC production enterprises that have difficulty obtaining ethylene resources will easily obtain lower-cost ethylene raw materials and adopt the ethylene oxide chlorination process with low pollution and low energy consumption. Produce high-quality PVC and compete with calcium carbide PVC.
“According to the current cost of methanol-based low-carbon olefins, the ethylene production of polyvinyl chloride from methanol-based low-carbon olefins technology has a cost advantage of more than 10% over the calcium carbide method. With the increase in the degree of national elimination of backward production capacity, in particular, After canceling the preferential electricity price policy originally enjoyed by the high-energy-consuming industries, the cost of calcium carbide process PVC will inevitably rise sharply with the rise in the prices of calcium carbide, coke and electricity. It can be foreseen that the process of industrialization of methanol-based low-carbon olefins will be foreseen. Accelerated, more PVC enterprises will adopt the ethylene process, and the momentum of excessive growth of PVC production by calcium carbide process will be curbed, and the proportion of calcium carbide process polyvinyl chloride will also gradually decrease until the PVC market is completely withdrawn. Lv Zhihui analyzed this.
Liu Zhongmin also bluntly stated that with the promotion of methanol-based low-carbon olefin technology, the largest impact may be the western calcium carbide method polyvinyl chloride enterprises. He said that in recent years, western provinces have built large-scale coal-to-methanol projects to develop the economy. However, due to the impact of the financial crisis and the impact of imported methanol, it was difficult for the western methanol to be sold to the East China and South China regions, resulting in a very serious overcapacity of methanol in the western region and an ever-widening loss in the industry. In order to revitalize the huge amount of capital invested in the construction of the methanol project, after the successful industrialization demonstration project of methanol-based low-carbon olefin technology, the western provinces will rush to launch the methanol-to-metal olefin project to achieve the nearest, high-efficiency and high-addition of methanol and coal. Value conversion. The expansion of production capacity of methanol-based low-carbon olefins will inevitably bring a large amount of cheap ethylene raw materials to PVC enterprises, further reducing the cost of ethylene PVC companies in the western region and enhancing their competitiveness. On the contrary, with the increasingly stringent national environmental protection policies, the prices of calcium carbide, PVC, electricity, and coal, which are required for the calcium carbide process, will also rise sharply, while the large amounts of hydrogen chloride and calcium carbide slag produced during the calcium carbide process , waste water, and waste gas will all increase the company's environmental pressure and environmental protection investment, increase its overall cost, and make it more cost-competitive than that of ethylene-based polyvinyl chloride. It will eventually be inferior to ethylene-based polyvinyl chloride and be forced to qiut the market.