MOSCOW (MRC) -- SP Olefins, a subsidiary of SP Chemicals, has recently started up China's "first" gas-based ethylene plant at a new gas cracker facility in Taixing, China, and was able to produce on-spec olefins, according to GV with reference to Wood Mackenzie.
The new 650,000 t/y ethylene cracker will provide feedstock to the plant's 500,000 t/y vinyl chloride monomer unit and 320,000 t/y styrene facility. About 300,000 t/y of ethylene, as well as the entire 122,000 t/y of propylene production, will be supplied to the merchant market. SP Olefins' gas cracker facility is also the "first" to import U.S. ethane as a feedstock, Wood Mackenzie noted.
In 2017, Ineos entered into a long-term supply agreement with SP Chemicals to deliver ethane from US shale gas to the gas cracker facility. The agreement included construction of a Very Large Ethane Carrier with 95,000 cu m of capacity, which Ineos said would be the largest" ethane carrier in the world.
"The ethane import tariff from the U.S. is 2% plus an additional 5% generated by the trade war," said Wood Mackenzie Senior Research Manager Kelly Cui. "Despite this, SP's ethylene cost remains highly competitive compared with naphtha crackers in China."
As MRC informed earlier, in March 2016, SP Olefins let a contract to Technip SA, Paris, to provide technology licensing and process design for the company’s proposed grassroots ethylene plant to be built in Taixing in China’s Jiangsu Province.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polyprolypele (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,724,670 tonnes in the first ten months of 2019, up by 7% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. The estimated PP consumption in the Russian market in January-October 2019 totalled 1,066,520 tonnes, up by 7% year on year. Supply of block copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymer) and homopolymer of propylene (homopolymer PP) increased, demand for statistical copolymers (PP random copolymer) decreased.
MRC