Shandong Tianhong Chemical to Build a PDH Unit

According to sources, the 450kt/a PDH unit at Shandong Tianhong Chemical was in the first EIA (environmental impact assessment) publicity stage on April 3, 2018. Currently, the project is in the project assessment stage. The investment of this project is about 15,047.064 million RMB, and this project will be built from 2018 to 2019.

The major feedstock of the PDH unit is propane, and this unit will produce propylene and hydrogen via the processes of preprocessing, propane dehydrogenation, PSA, etc. Some propylene resources will be arranged for Shandong Keluer Chemical to produce acrylonitrile, and some of them will be sold to the market. The hydrogen resources will be used in the hydrogenation unit at Shandong Tianhong Chemical.

According to SCI’s statistics, there are 8 PDH units in China, and the total capacity reaches 4,610kt/a. Meanwhile, the PDH capacity amid the mixed alkane dehydrogenation capacity reaches 525kt/a. Therefore, China’s total PDH capacity is about 5,135kt/a. SCI reckons that the PDH units will consume about 4,850kt of propane in a year, when the operating rate is about 80%.

The planned capacity of the PDH unit at Shandong Tianhong Chemical is about 450kt/a, so the annual propane consumption volume of this unit will reach 530kt or so. Therefore, SCI estimates that the demand for propane will continue to grow.

As seen from the table above, there are many newly added PDH units in China from 2018 to 2020. SCI learns that the newly added PDH capacity will reach 7,600kt/a, but the commissioning time may be delayed due to the complicated process. Moreover, SCI holds that the dependency to the imported propane of the domestic deep-processing enterprises will remain high.

Some newly added PDH units have limited impacts on the Chinese-made propane, and most Chinses-made propane resources are used as fuel. In terms of imported propane, China imported 13,352.3kt of propane in 2017. SCI predicts that the import volume of propane will continue to increase, and market participants need to pay close attention to actual commission situation of PDH units.