Sinopec Completes 100,000-Ton Butadiene Factory

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Sinopec recently announced that its new 100,000-ton-per-annum (TPA) butadiene factory has started its trial run. The factory is a part of Yangtze Petrochemical Company (YPC) (Nanjing City), a subsidiary of Sinopec. The plant has doubled YPC's butadiene capacity to 206,000 TPA, making it China's largest producer of the product. Construction on the $35.3 million factory was completed in about one year.

The factory will use mixed C4 as raw material from YPC's related factories, including YPC itself and BASF-YPC Company Limited (Nanjing). As an important raw material for making tires, butadiene consumption has been increasing with the country's developing automotive industry.

In Nanjing, YPC, BASF-YPC, YPC-GPRO Rubber Company, Humho Tire China Corporation and others have created a full chain of butadiene producers and consumers. In 2006, China's butadiene consumption rose to 1.21 million tons. However, because production was falling behind demand, China resorted to imports.

Chinese petrochemical companies then began building butadiene factories and have made the total capacity 1.35 million tons in 2007, basically meeting domestic needs. It is estimated that China's production capacity will reach 2.5 million TPA in 2010 when more new factories become operational.

Reports state that the manufacture of paper and shoes, the paving of roads, and ABS resin will support the price of butadiene, which fell in 2006 as production rose.

Yangtze Petrochemical, acquired by Sinopec in 2006, has 43 sets of large-scale devices which can process 8 million tons of crude oil, produce 650,000 tons of ethylene and 1.4 million tons of aromatic hydrocarbon.

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