Gulei Refinery, a 50:50 joint venture between China's state-controlled Sinopec and Taiwanese firm Xuteng, achieved on-specification production at its new 350,000 t/yr polypropylene (PP) plant at Zhangzhou in south China's Fujian province earlier this week.
Trial runs at the new PP line started at the end of December and on-specification production was reached on 21 March.
The new PP plant uses Sinopec's ST-III technology. The company has bought merchant propylene from local market to feed the plant.
The PP plant is the first petrochemical unit to start operations under Gulei Refinery's new cracker project. The company plans to start its upstream 1mn t/yr naphtha-fed ethylene cracker and integrated 100,000/700,000t/yr ethylene oxide/ethylene glycol unit, 600,000t/yr styrene monomer plant and 300,000 t/yr ethylene vinyl acetate plant in the third quarter of 2021.
