Empowered: New Integrated Refining Project in Caofeidian China

Tangshan Risun Petrochemical, one of China’s Top 500 Enterprises, signed contract to invest and build the 15,000kt/a integrated refining and chemical (IRC) project at Caofeidian with Tangshan government on March 21, 2017. Recently, on September 22, the NDRC of Hebei Province officially approved this application and agreed to put this project into the national IRC project approved list.

The project will be built in the Caofeidian Petrochemical Industry Base which is bounded on the north by the port, on the west by the Caofeidian Industry Zone & Shougang Jingtang United Iron & Steel Co., Ltd., on the east and south by the Bohai Sea. The project is planned to take over 2 sq.km, and the designed primary processing capacity will reach 15,000kt/a. The project is designed to follow the processing route of “ADU & VDU + Residuum upgrading + Hydrocracking + Continuous Reforming + Aromatics + Isomerization”, which is already a mature process technology.

The designed complex capacity is listed as below:

1       ADU & VDU    15,000kt/a

2       Kerosene hydrofining unit   1,600kt/a

3       Diesel hydrofining unit 4,000kt/a

4       Hydrocracking unit                  4,000kt/a

5       Residuum upgrading unit     3,000kt/a

6       Aromatics complex unit        2,000kt/a

7       Isomerization unit          700kt/a

8       PSA unit                              180,000 standard volume/h

9       Hydrogen unit                 50,000 standard volume/h

10     Sulfur recovery unit       3x150kt/a

As for the LPG, as a by-product in the refining, the project will contribute over 550.1kt/a LPG output to North China market and help the market to alleviate the pressure from supply deficit, especially when the alkylation units in many state-owned refineries are put into use intensively. Maybe the regional resource distribution needs further optimization after the operation of the project, however, in the end, considering the strong rigid demand and flourishing gas deep-processing industry in North China and surrounding areas, the future of the LPG market in North China will be promised.