CNPC and the Chinese regional government of Xinjiang performed the ground breaking ceremony for the first ethane cracker project in the region on Thursday.
The cracker, which will be built with an investment of 9 billion yuan ($1.3 billion) by China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), China’s leading oil and gas corporation, is the largest investment in refining and chemicals the company made in the region.
The cracker is scheduled to be operational by June 2021. Ethylene products produced by the plant will be sold globally, said Xu Wenqing, vice general manager of CNPC in the Tarim Basin, during the project’s groundbreaking ceremony in the city of Korla.
The cracker will produce ethylene by ethane cracking, a method that is used in many developed countries. It will use natural gas from Tarim Basin as the feedstock.
Polyethylene products have been in short supply in China for a long time, especially high-density polyethylene products which have strong profitability.
The project aims to produce 600,000 tons of ethylene per year, with projected annual output value of 6 billion yuan ($890 million) and 1.029 billion yuan ($150 million) in annual profits.
