-The chemical yield of nearly 50 percent has reached internationally-advanced 
levels. 
-The technology significantly shortens the production process, lowers 
production costs and reduces carbon dioxide emissions. 
-Sinopec's next step is to build a million-ton industrial demonstration plant.

China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (HKG: 0386, "Sinopec") has successfully 
tested its key project, "Technological Development and Industrial Application 
of Light Crude Oil Cracking into Ethylene," this month at Sinopec Tianjin.

The technology converts crude oil directly into ethylene, propylene and other 
chemical products ("crude-to-chemicals") and realizes the first industrial 
application of crude oil steam-cracking technology in China. The milestone is 
of great significance to the transformation and upgrading of China's 
petrochemical industry, also contributing to achieve "dual carbon" goals.

The crude oil steam-cracking technology is one of the "crude-to-chemicals" 
solutions which "skips" the traditional crude oil refining process to directly 
convert crude oil into valuable chemical products like ethylene and propylene – 
analogous to making bread directly with wheat and eliminating the flour 
grinding process. This approach will greatly shorten the production process, 
lower production costs and significantly reduce energy consumption and carbon 
emissions.

The technology was developed and engineered by Sinopec's Beijing Research 
Institute of Chemical Industry and Sinopec Engineering Group (SEG) and the 
industrial testing was carried out at Sinopec Tianjin. It has applied for 45 
Chinese patents for invention and one international patent for invention. At 
present, ExxonMobil and Sinopec are the only two companies to successfully 
achieve industrial application of crude oil steam-cracking technology 
worldwide. It's estimated that for every 1 million tons of crude oil processed 
by this technology, nearly 500,000 tons of chemical products can be produced, 
400,000 tons of which are high-value products such as ethylene, propylene, 
light aromatics and hydrogen. Overall, Sinopec's technology has reached an 
internationally-advanced level and presents huge economic value and potential.

A basic raw material of chemical products, ethylene is coined the "mother of 
the petrochemical industry," and is one of the key benchmarks to measure the 
development level of a country's petrochemical industry. As people's living 
standards continues to improve, the global demand for chemical products is also 
growing, and as basic raw materials, the demand for ethylene and propylene has 
also increased accordingly. In general, the raw materials needed for producing 
ethylene and propylene must go through the crude oil refining process at the 
refineries, the production process of which is not only longer, but also only 
30 percent of the crude oil is used to produce the chemical raw materials.

Sinopec has always emphasized the R&D and application of "crude-to-chemicals" 
technologies. In April 2021, the catalytic cracking technology of crude oil 
independently developed by Sinopec's Beijing Research Institute of Chemical 
Industry, another "crude-to-chemicals" solution, also completed industrial 
application in Yangzhou, which has made China a leader in catalytic cracking of 
crude oil globally.

Similar to the crude oil steam-cracking technology, the chemical yield of 
catalytic cracking is also about 50 percent, and combining the two technologies 
is expected to increase the total amount of chemicals produced by crude oil to 
more than 70 percent, which will become an economically efficient solution for 
"crude-to-chemicals" conversion in the future.

Sinopec is preparing to carry out the development and engineering design of 
packaged technology for the production of ethylene by steam-cracking 1 million 
tons of crude oil at its Tahe company in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, 
building an industrial demonstration plant for the direct production of 
chemicals from crude oil and establishing a new model for the transformation 
and development of China's petrochemical industry.

For the large-scale ethylene project planned for the future, the crude oil 
steam-cracking technology will be included in the key technology comparison and 
selection scheme, which will provide strong support to relieve the 
contradiction between supply and demand as well as aiding the enterprises' 
transformation and upgrading, making greater contributions to achieving 'dual 
carbon' goals.

For more information, please visit Sinopec (http://www.sinopec.com/listco/en/).

Source: SINOPEC



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   Link: https://iop.asianetnews.net/view-attachment?attach-id=407924

   Caption: Sinopec Successfully Completes China’s First Industrial Application 
of Crude Oil Steam-Cracking Technology.