By Yang Xiuxia, Sinopec Economics & Development Research Institute

The development is entering the fast track

There are mainly 4 rare earth BR producers in China today. They include PetroChina Dushanzi Petrochemical Co., Ltd., Sinopec Yanshan Petrochemical Co., Ltd., PetroChina Jinzhou Petrochemical Co., Ltd. and Zhejiang Transfar Group. The total capacity is around 200 kt/a.
   PetroChina Jinzhou Petrochemical Co., Ltd. conducted the development of rare earth oil-extended BR in 1975 in collaboration with CAS Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry and formed a complete production process technology. In 1988 Jinzhou Petrochemical Co., Ltd. made 10 kt/a commercial production design and completed the first commercial production of rare earth BR in China. Brands of rare earth BR in Jinzhou Petrochemical Co., Ltd. mainly include BR9100, BR9110 and BR9112.
   After renovation and trial production made in 2013 and 2014, PetroChina Dushanzi Petrochemical Co., Ltd. has finally achieved continuous, stable, safe and controllable operation and acquired a capacity of 15 kt/a. The product brand is BR9101.
   Sinopec Yanshan Petrochemical Company used the technology jointly developed with Beijing University of Chemical Technology and constructed a 30 kt/a rare earth BR unit in 2012. In January 2018 Yanshan Petrochemical used the second-generation rare earth catalyst (the cost reduced to 20% of the cost of the first-generation catalyst) and achieved successful continuous commercial production. The product performance was further improved and the catalyst consumption made a drastic reduction. Rare earth BR produced in Yanshan Petrochemical is already used in quite a few downstream tire enterprises today. Product brands include ND40, ND50 and ND60.
   Zhejiang Transfar Group developed rare earth BR in December 2014 in collaboration with Zhejiang University. Pilot test was successfully conducted in March 2017. Commercial production was made in its renovated 50 kt/a Ni-based BR production line once in April and once in June and rare earth BR was successfully produced. Product brands include BR9104 and BR9106.
   In addition to above-mentioned 4 units, Sichuan Petrochemical Co., Ltd. is also renovating its existing Ni-based BR unit. The development of rare earth BR in China is entering the fast track. With the constant upgrading of the production and application level, the potential capacity of rare earth BR in China will make a further rapid increase. BR units planned to be constructed in near future are all rare earth/Ni-based flexible units

The consumption market will make a takeoff

   The import of rare earth BR in China is mainly made from Singapore, Germany, the United States, Japan and Russia. See Figure 1 for details. After the 140 kt/a rare earth BR unit of Lanxess in Singapore was completed and put on stream in 2015, the amount of rare earth BR imported by China from Singapore has made a drastic increase. The amount of rare earth BR imported from Singapore reached 37.4 kt in 2017, an increase of 154.4% over 14.7 kt in 2016.

             Figure 1  Import trend of rare earth BR from major sources in China

   With the demand increase of high-performance tires in the automobile industry in recent years, the consumption of rare earth BR has made a rapid growth in China. The consumption of rare earth BR in China was 50-60 kt in 2017, almost doubled compared with 2016, but products mainly depended on import.
   In China rare earth BR is mainly used in foreign-funded tire enterprises. The consumption in domestic-funded tire enterprises is relatively small. With the narrowing of the price difference between rare earth BR and Ni-based BR in Arlanxeo in 2016, however, the consumption in some domestic-funded tire enterprises is also making a drastic increase.

Development of rare earth BR

   The capacity of rare earth BR in China will continue to make a constant expansion in future. It will become an indispensable product for high-performance tires. There is still much work to do in research on the processing and application of domestic rare earth BR. The first is to further enhance the catalytic efficiency of domestic rare earth catalyst, reduce the production cost and increase the productivity. The second is to maintain the balance between various rubber properties and it is okay for the content of the 1,4-cis structure to reach over 96%. The third is the alliance between rubber producers and tire enterprises to produce rare earth BR varieties that can meet different needs such as branched variety, end-modified functionalized variety and plastic-modified golf variety so as to expand application sectors. In addition, the requirement on higher abrasion resistance of tires in the development of electric vehicles will also boost a rapid demand increase of rare earth BR. It is expected that the demand of rare earth BR will increase at an average annual rate of around 10% in future and rare earth BR will likely replace Ni-based BR.