Butyl Rubber Expansion Project in China Scheduled to End in May 2008

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The 45,000-ton-per-annum (TPA) butyl rubber production capacity-expansion project at Beijing Yanshan Petrochemical, a China National Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) (Beijing) company, is making stable progress. The project's planned completion date is May 2008.

The existing 30,000-TPA butyl rubber production unit at the Rubber Industry Department at Yanshan Petrochemical was set up in 1999. In recent years, along with China's economic boom, the market demand for butyl rubber has dramatically increased. The existing 30,000-ton production unit cannot meet market demand anymore. In 2006, Sinopec and Italian Press Industria (PI) signed a contract regarding Yanshan Petrochemical's exclusive right to use PI's butyl rubber technology and to receive PI's butyl technology transfer. This solved the problem of technology resources in Yanshan Petrochemical's butyl rubber expansion endeavor. The company's 45,000-TPA butyl rubber expansion project's feasibility report was approved by Sinopec in March 2006. Basic design and equipment import were carried out smoothly thereafter.

The upgrading of the upstream raw material production methyl-tert-butyl-ether (MTBE) cracking unit was completed earlier this year during the facility overhaul. Construction on the butyl rubber production unit started in July 2007. Since construction was carried out without suspending the production of butyl rubber, the safety and security risk at the expansion project is quite high. To ensure safe operation of the project, officials in charge of the expansion work are on-site every day to coordinate and solve any problems. The civil engineering work on the foundation at the polymerizing zone has already begun, and the steel frame installation at the cold processing area will begin in the near future.

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