Major private-sector Chinese refiner and petrochemical firm Zhejiang Petrochemical (ZPC) produced propylene from its new propane dehydrogenation (PDH) plant today.
The plant, at Zhoushan in east China's Zhejiang province, was fed in propane around 10-11 July. It is now running at around 60pc.
The new propylene yield still has high water content. ZPC expects to reach on-specification output in a couple of days after fine-tuning the production process.
ZPC's new PDH unit has nameplate capacity of 600,000 t/yr of propylene, requiring 720,000 t/yr of propane supplies. Its propane feedstock mainly comes from ZPC's integrated 400,000 b/d refinery at Zhoushan.
ZPC has also built two new derivative units with the PDH plant. A 260,000 t/yr acrylonitrile unit started up two weeks ago and is now running at 70pc. A 400,000/250,000 t/yr phenol/acetone unit will be put into operation soon. The balance of 20,000 t/month of propylene will be for merchant sales.
The new PDH unit takes ZPC's propylene capacity to 1.63mn t/yr, making it the largest private-sector propylene producer in China. This includes 700,000 t/yr of propylene from its naphtha cracker and 330,000 t/yr from a fluid catalytic cracker (FCC). Both units started operations in December 2019.
