PetroChina Selects Linde AG to Construct New Ethylene Unit in Dushanzi, China

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). PetroChina Company, Limited (NYSE:PTR)(Beijing, China) has selected Linde AG (Wiesbaden, Germany) as the engineering and construction contractor for the ethylene and propylene unit that will be built as part of a new $2.5 billion petrochemical complex. See related Industry Alert: China Hits Small and Dirty Petrochem Plants and Fast Tracks Large New Projects. The ethylene unit will produce one million metric tons per year and the propylene unit will produce 500,000 metric tons per year. Linde will execute the project form its Munich, Germany office. Construction is expected to commence in the summer of 2006 and a completion date during the second half of 2008.

Linde will also license its ethylene and propylene production process technology. The technology centers on Pyrocrack furnaces and the Ultrarec olefins recovery process. The furnaces are versatile enough to crack feedstocks ranging from ethane, propane, butane, LPG and naphtha. The Ultrarec process deethanizes and hydrogenates at the front end, which combine to offer cost savings and efficient energy usage on each production train.

PetroChina had earlier selected Aker Kvaerner (OTC:AKKVF) (Lysaker, Norway) as the engineering and construction contractor for two polyethylene units that will be built as part of the complex. Each unit will have a production capacity of 300,000 metric tons a year and will utilize Univation's Unipol process technology. This will be the first production unit in China to utilize Univation's single reactor bimodal technology to process high-density film.

The new petrochemical complex will enable PetroChina to meet the increasing needs of China for petrochemical products and plastics. The consumption of petrochemicals in China is currently growing at a rate of 8 to 10 percent per year.

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