MOSCOW (MRC) -- Chinese state-owned oil and gas major Sinopec has increased daily natural gas supply to the north of the country by more than 10 million cubic meters in a bid to meet demand from local residents and enterprises amid cold weather, reported S&P Global with reference to the company's statement on its official website Nov. 22.
This equates to nearly 6% of the state owned company's annual gas supply and 10% of its domestic gas output. Sinopec currently supplies a total of 180 million cu m/day of natural gas to the country including both domestic and imported sources, the company said, noting that its daily gas production reached a record high of 99.79 million cu m on Nov. 21.
The ramp-up in gas supply is on account of another cold snap. China's Central Meteorological Observatory issued a "blue" warning on Nov. 19, signaling a cold front was expected to sweep across the whole country over Nov. 20-23, bringing blizzards, strong winds and a temperature drop of more than 14 degrees Celsius from north to south.
This is the third cold warning issued by the observatory so far this winter. The last two warnings were released in mid-October and early November. China has been ramping up gas supply from all sources including pipeline gas contracts with Central Asia.
Sinopec has built up an effective natural gas working storage volume of 1.79 billion cu m, including at the Wen 96, Jintan, Wen 23 and Ganghua storage sites, Sinopec said, adding that it has secured 27.2 Bcm of domestic and foreign natural gas resources for ensuring supply in the winter-spring season.
Sinopec is currently working on the second dock of its Tianjin LNG terminal, which is part of the Tianjin LNG phase 2 project, and is expected to be ready for putting it into operation by the end of November, it said. This will further alleviate gas shortages in the region.
As MRC informed earlier, China's Sinopec Corp said last Wednesday it plans to build a 1-MMtpy crude-to-olefin plant, having completed successful trial processing crude oil directly into olefin at its subsidiary plant in Tianjin, without giving further details. Thus, the top Asian refiner is one of the world's few companies that have applied the technology at an industrial scale. ExxonMobil is another firm equipped with such technology, 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 1,868,160 tonnes in the first nine months of 2021, up by 18% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 1,138,510 tonnes in January-September 2021, up by 30% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of injection moulding statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) decreased significantly.
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.
MRC