MOSCOW (MRC) - China will need refining capacity controls and bans on plastics to reach peak crude oil consumption of 720 million tonnes by 2025 if it is to cap its total carbon emissions before 2030, said Reuters.
The country needs to maintain crude oil refining capacity below 930 million tonnes by 2025, phase out outdated refineries with annual capacity of less than 5 million tonnes and optimize the structure of refined oil products, the 2020 China Oil Cap report said.
The report, commissioned by the U.S.-based Natural Resources Defence Council and Development Research Centre (DRC) of China's State Council, forecast China will add 140 million tonnes of refining capacity in the next five years from mega-sized integrated refining complex and shut down at least 70 million tonnes from small refineries in the smog-prone north and east.
"Coal consumption in China reached a peak in 2013 and has plateaued since then. However, the efforts of carbon reduction from coal are offset by the increase from oil and gas sectors," Yang Fuqiang, a contributor to the report, said.
As MRC informed previously, global oil demand may have already peaked, according to BP's latest long-term energy outlook, as the COVID-19 pandemic kicks the world economy onto a weaker growth trajectory and accelerates the shift to cleaner fuels.
Earlier this year, BP said the deadly coronavirus outbreak could cut global oil demand growth by 40% in 2020, putting pressure on Opec producers and Russia to curb supplies to keep prices in check.
And in September 2019, six world's major petrochemical companies in Flanders, Belgium, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, and the Netherlands (Trilateral Region) announced the creation of a consortium to jointly investigate how naphtha or gas steam crackers could be operated using renewable electricity instead of fossil fuels. The Cracker of the Future consortium, which includes BASF, Borealis, BP, LyondellBasell, SABIC and Total, aims to produce base chemicals while also significantly reducing carbon emissions. The companies agreed to invest in R&D and knowledge sharing as they assess the possibility of transitioning their base chemical production to renewable electricity.
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