The city of Ningbo in the Chinese province of Zhejiang has unveiled plans to become a large-scale refining and petrochemical hub. The local government intends to add refining capacity to 1.2 million tons/year, alkene capacity to 10 million tons/year, paraxylene (PX) capacity to 8.5 million tons/year, and methyl diphenyl isocyanate (MDI) capacity to 1.5 million tons/year by 2025. Ningbo currently has 620,000 bpd of refining, 1.3 million tons/year of ethylene, 7 million tons/year of purified terephthalic acid (PTA), and 1.2 million tons/year of MDI capacities.
The existing refining capacity consists of Sinopec’s 460,000 bpd Zhenhai refinery and CNOOC’s 160,000 bpd Daxie plants. Zhenhai is building a 220,000 bpd new crude unit and will retire an old 140,000 bpd unit. Meanwhile, Daxie is planning to add 120,000 bpd capacity. The new crude processing capacity will provide feedstock for the city’s additional ethylene capacity of 1.2 million tons/year. These new ethylene and refining capacities are due on stream by the middle of 2021.
Apart from Zhenhai’s 1 million tons/year cracker, the rest of Ningbo’s petrochemical capacity is operated by private companies. Ningbo Fund operates a methanol-to-olefins plant that can produce up to 600,000 tons/year of ethylene and propylene. Rongsheng Petrochemical’s subsidiary Zhongjin Petrochemical runs a 1.6 million tons/year PX capacity. Yisheng Petrochemical, where Rongsheng holds a 50% stake, operates three PTA plants with a total capacity of 5.15 million tons/year.
