On April 18th, Ganergy Heavy Industry Group and KBR of the United States held a signing ceremony of Memorandum of Understanding for the 2.6 million tons of ethane to 2.0 million tons of ethylene project in Jinzhou, China. Deputy Mayor of Jinzhou City, An Jinxiang and other municipal government leaders; Rik Klavers, Vice President of Petrochemical Technology Business, Technology and Consulting Department of KBR of the United States; Yang Dajun, General Manager of KBR in China district; Li Wenliang, General Manager of Ganergy Heavy Industry Group, and Deputy General Manager, Chen Hong, attended the signing ceremony.
Since the shale gas revolution in the United States in 2010, shale gas production in the US has continued to increase. In addition to meeting the capacity of ethylene equipment with ethane as feedstock in the US, the US has gradually exported ethane to Europe and other places since 2016. The total investment of the 2.6 million tons of ethane to 2.0 million tons of ethylene project signed this time was approximately RMB 27.6 billion. It uses ethane imported from the US as feedstock and introduces KBR’s internationally leading process technology. Compared with naphtha steam cracking and MTO process routes, ethane has obvious cost advantages. The signing ceremony marked the US advanced ethane steam cracking technology first settled in China and will fill the domestic technological gap, which has milestone significance.
KBR is a pioneer in the world‘s petrochemical industry. It has an internationally leading ethane to ethylene technology. With more than 60 years of experience in the design of ethylene plants, it has a high ethylene yield. Its performance factories are all over the world’s major ethylene producers such as ExxonMobil, Dow Chemical, and Saudi Basic Industries, etc. At present, KBR is building a new ethane to ethylene plant in Texas, USA with an annual 1.8 million tons of ethylene production, which is the world’s largest single-line capacity. From May 2017, Ganergy Heavy Industry Group and KBR have conducted several technical exchanges and communication on ethane to ethylene technology. In December 2017, in order to demonstrate the commercialization and maturity of the technology, Ganergy Heavy Industry Group and Jinzhou City Government specially visited the US, Texas site to investigate two sets of KBR-designed equipment with ethane as feedstock and 1.0 million tons of ethylene capacity.
At the signing ceremony, Deputy Mayor, An Jinxiang, on behalf of the Jinzhou Municipal Government, welcomed Rik Klavers and Li Wenliang and his delegation, and introduced Jinzhou’s long history, superior port conditions, convenient transportation advantages, and a good industrial foundation. An Jinxiang said that the municipal government will make every effort to provide quality services for the project construction of this signed 2.6 million tons of ethane to 2.0 million tons of ethylene project.
Rik Klavers said that Ganergy Heavy Industry Group strength and foresight, and KBR will continue to work closely with Ganergy Heavy Industry Group in technology optimization, technical personnel training, and startup operations to achieve win-win results.
Li Wenliang said that the 2.6 million tons of ethane to 2.0 million tons of ethylene project is the most important milestone for Ganergy Heavy Industry Group to achieve a leap-forward development from drilling machinery processing to the downstream petrochemical and chemical business. The group worked together and continues to support the project. At the same time, it is very confident in KBR’s technology and hopes that the project will be put into production as soon as possible, which will contribute to the economic development of Jinzhou City.
According to the signed MOU, KBR will provide comprehensive technical services such as technology license, process design, support for the design work of domestic design institutes, personnel exchanges and training, and operation consulting after the equipment startup. In particular, in view of the risk of insufficient ethane imports in the future or high prices of imported ethane, KBR will provide an optimized design that will enable the equipment to take into account the possibility of changing feedstock from ethane to other feedstock in the future.
