China's first full-chain green low-carbon ethylene project is fully put into commercial operation

China News Service, Beijing, October 15 (Reporter Pang Wuji) China's first full-chain green low-carbon ethylene project - PetroChina Dushanzi Petrochemical Tarim 1.2 million tons/year second phase ethylene and supporting green low-carbon demonstration project was fully put into commercial operation on the 15th. This also marks that PetroChina has established a long-term stable operation capability for the 3 million-ton ethylene industry in Xinjiang.

On the same day, PetroChina held a press conference in Beijing to disclose the above information. Since the first successful start-up on July 16 this year, the project has produced more than 260,000 tons of ethylene and supplied 566,000 tons of high-quality chemicals. The qualification rate of various products has reached 100%. Polypropylene and MTBE (methyl tert-butyl ether) products are exported to the Central Asian market.

The project built the country's first independent technology ethylene three-machine electric drive device and the world's first ethylene cracking furnace flue gas carbon recycling demonstration base. The project produces urea by recovering carbon dioxide from the flue gas of the ethylene cracking furnace, realizing "making fertilizer from waste". At present, the project has captured and utilized more than 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide and produced more than 120,000 tons of green urea. The project can reduce carbon emissions by 1.37 million tons per year, and the ecological benefits of carbon sequestration are equivalent to adding 5.48 million acres of forest carbon sinks. Xinjiang Korla Shangku High-tech Industrial Development Zone, where the project is located, has been selected into the first batch of national zero-carbon park construction lists.

On the 15th, the 1.2 million tons/year second phase of ethylene and supporting green and low-carbon demonstration projects of PetroChina Dushanzi Petrochemical Tarim were fully put into commercial operation. The picture shows the core device of the project - the ethylene unit. Photo by Li Qin

Ethylene is known as the "mother of the petrochemical industry", and its downstream synthetic materials widely cover daily consumption, textiles and clothing, infrastructure and building materials, new energy, medical and health and other fields.

This project relies on Xinjiang's "bridgehead" location advantage for opening up to the west and continues to export low-carbon, high-end rubber and plastic products to Central Asia. The project can produce 900,000 tons of full-density polyethylene, 450,000 tons of polypropylene, and 100,000 tons of butadiene rubber per year. The total production capacity of rubber and plastic products reaches 1.45 million tons. It will fill the gap in the high-end polyolefin and synthetic rubber new material industries in southern Xinjiang, drive the formation of a 100-billion-level industrial cluster in the downstream region, and drive the Xinjiang Bayingolin Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture's GDP growth by 15%. Huang Xinping, executive deputy governor of Bayingoleng Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture, said that the project will directly create 1,500 new jobs. With the successive completion of downstream industrial projects, it can create more than 15,000 new jobs.

Jin Yong, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and professor of Tsinghua University, believes that as the country's first full-chain green low-carbon ethylene demonstration project, the project's green demonstration model has effectively solved the industry's pain points, established a full-chain low-carbon development system on the basis of stabilizing industrial supply capacity and ensuring the security of the industrial chain supply chain, and reshaped the traditional development logic of the high-energy-consuming petrochemical industry. Jiang Qingzhe, president of the China International Carbon Neutral Economic Research Institute, commented that the project creates a "Chinese plan" for the low-carbon transformation of the petrochemical industry.