The Approved Stimulus and Adjustment Program for Petrochemical Industry      

MIIT recently issued the 2009-2011 stimulus and adjustment program for China's petrochemical industry, which has been recently approved by the State Council.
    The purpose of this program is to resolve the current problems faced by China's petrochemical industry, ensure its smooth operation, expedite its upgrading, cut costs, increase the proportion of high-end products, speed up construction of major projects, strictly control expansion on refining and ethylene capacities, and promote the merging and acquisition.
    According to this program, by 2011, China's petrochemical industry will have a refining capacity of 405 million t/a, a refined oil output of 247.5 million t/a, an ethylene output of 15.5 million t/a, a chemical fertilizer output of 62.5 million t/a (in nutrients), and the proportion of high-concentration chemical fertilizers will increase to 80% while the production cost will drop significantly. The proportion of high-efficiency, low-toxicity and low-persistent pesticides will increase significantly. Three or four production bases with a capacity of 20 million t/a refining and 2 million t/a ethylene will be constructed. By 2009, all motor gasoline made in China will reach the state III standard. By 2010, all vehicle diesels will meet the state III standard. By 2011, the yield rate of light oil products will reach 75%, and the self-sufficiency rate of high-end petrochemical products will increase remarkably. The industrialization technology of butyl rubber will make a breakthrough, and coal-to-oil, coal-to-olefins and coal-to-MEG (mono-ethylene glycol) demonstration projects will be completed and put into production.
    By 2011, in the petrochemical industry, the energy consumption will decline by more than 12%, the discharge of pollutants like sewage, sulfur dioxide and dust will reduce more than 6%. The standard oil consumption for large-scale refineries will be lower than 63 kilograms per ton of crude oil processed, the standard oil consumption for large-scale ethylene plants will be lower than 640 kilograms per ton of ethylene, and the energy consumption for large-scale coal-to-ammonia plants will be lower than 1.8 tons standard coal per ton of ammonia.
    The Chinese government will promulgate policies to encourage enterprises to increase investment in technological renovation. It will set up a special fund for the industry's revitalization and technical renovation and support the industrialization of butyl rubber and caprolactam and the construction of localized demonstration projects of large-scale ethylene production engineering and technology. It will strictly control the new construction in the over-supply sub-industries such as methanol, caustic soda and soda ash, and control the new refining and ethylene projects, and speed up the elimination of outdated production capacity by means of raising the conditions of access, strengthening the clean production audit and implementing differential electricity pricing.