Eric Watkins
Senior Correspondent
LOS ANGELES, June 27 -- China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (Sinopec) has launched a 1 million tonne/year ethylene project in the Binghai New Zone, in north China's Tianjin municipality. The project is scheduled for completion in 2009.
The new facility will raise ethylene production capacity at the company's Tianjin branch to 1.2 million tonnes/year and its refining capacity to 12.5 million tonnes/year, Sinopec said.
Sinopec also plans to build two crackers in Shanghai and Wuhan of Central China's Hubei Province. The Shanghai plant is designed with a capacity of 1 million tonnes/year, while the Wuhan facility would produce 800,000 tonnes/year.
Industry sources said the plants in Shanghai and Wuhan are planned for the more distant future, and still await approval from the Chinese government.
Sinopec currently has two ethylene production facilities in Shanghai, one of which is a 50-50 joint venture with BP PLC with a capacity of 900,000 tonnes/year.
Contact Eric Watkins at [email protected].
