MOSCOW (MRC) -- Due to an unspecified technical issue at the upstream propane dehydrogenation (PDH) unit, Ningbo Fortune Petrochemical Co Ltd (Fuji) was forced to take both the PDH and the downstream polypropylene (PP) plants offline on 5 October 2019, reported CommoPlast.
Repair works are taking place, however, sources said that both plants might need to remain shut for at least 30 days.
Ningbo Fortune Petrochemical Co Ltd (Fuji) is a subsidiary of Oriental Energy Co Ltd (Dong Hua). Its plant in Ningbo houses a PDH unit with an annual capacity of 660,000 tons of propylene/year. Meanwhile, the PP unit produces 400,000 tons/year.
As MRC wrote before, in 2018, Oriental Energy Ningbo restarted its PDH unit following an unplanned outage, in end-September. The unit was shut owing to technical glitch in mid-September, 2018. Located in Zhejiang, China, the PDH unit has a propylene capacity of 600,000 mt/year.
Besides, Oriental Energy Co., China's largest liquefied petroleum gas importer, plans to invest about CNY2.5 billion (USD398 million) to enlarge its PP plant in Ningbo in southeastern China’s Zhejiang province to supply rising demand for industrial plastics. The Ningbo unit of Nanjing-based Oriental Energy, Oriental Energy New Materials Co., will set up the project in the Ningbo Daxie Development Zone to produce homopolymer and random copolymers. The project will include two production lines, which will apply US-based W. R. Grace & Co.’s gas-phase, fluidized bed reactor technology, and targets an annual output of 400,000 tons each. The construction period is two years. The company's storage capacity and Ningbo's port will feed the plant’s raw material needs.
Oriental Energy will set up another PP plant in Lianyungang in east-central China’s Jiangsu province, as well two other petrochemical facilities in port cities in Jiangsu - one in Lianyungang and the other in Zhangjiagang - with an annual output of 400,000 tons of the thermoplastic polymer resin.
Propylene is a feedstock for the production of PP.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, the PP consumption in the Russian market was 909,260 tonnes in January-August 2019, up by 10% year on year. Shipments of PP block copolymer and homopolymer PP increased.
MRC