38 billion petrochemical projects settled in Hainan

While Hainan Province began to vigorously build "international tourism islands", another large-scale petrochemical project may soon be settled in the province.

China Investment Advisory Network News On January 21, 2010, a head of the Merchants Department of the Yangpu Economic Development Zone in Hainan confirmed that Qatar Petroleum International (QPI) is negotiating with CNOOC to establish an olefin joint venture company. In addition, Dalian Shide Group also participated in the process. The project's cooperation. However, the person in charge at the same time stressed that the current project is only at the discussion stage, has not signed a letter of intent, nor submitted an application to the National Development and Reform Commission. ·China Petroleum Coke Market Research Report 2010

According to foreign sources, the investment in this project will reach 38 billion yuan. It is also reported that as one of the medium and long-term projects of Yangpu Economic Development Zone, the project needs at least 3 years before it is put into production. After production, the project will reach an annual output of 3.9 million tons of olefins.

Hainan must build oil strategic reserve base
On December 31 last year, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Several Opinions of the State Council on Promoting the Construction and Development of International Tourism Islands in Hainan" (hereinafter referred to as "opinions"). As a result, "Hainan International Tourism Island" has been promoted as a national strategy. At the same time, however, many people overlooked that the "Opinions" also gave Hainan another important task - "the strategic oil reserve base." As Hainan is strategically located in the South China Sea and the Beibu Gulf, and has abundant oil and gas resources, the Opinions point out that local resources should be fully utilized to intensively develop new industries and Hainan should be built into the exploration and development service and processing base of oil and gas resources in the South China Sea. Timely planning and construction of a national oil strategic reserve base to encourage the development of commercial oil reserves and refined oil reserves.

In fact, the "Opinions" just gave Hainan's blazing petrochemical industry a clearer direction. It is understood that in 2008, the petrochemical industry has accounted for 42.6% of Hainan's GDP. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, Hainan also started work, resumed work and approved a number of major chemical projects. For example, in November 2008 and February 2009, CNOOC started 800,000 tons of methanol project and 2 million tons of olefin chemical project in Hainan Dongfang Industrial Zone; in May 2009, 600,000 tons of PX project was approved to settle in Yangpu Economic Development Zone. This is also the first PX project approved by the country after the PX incident in Xiamen in 2008. In November 2009, as the downstream industry of the PX project, the country’s largest 2 million tons PTA project also settled in Yangpu. By 2008, the output value of the petrochemical industry in Hainan Province has reached 50.3 billion yuan, accounting for 42.6% of the total industrial output value, and it has become the largest pillar industry in Hainan. The Qatar 3.9 million tons olefin project that is under discussion will undoubtedly further promote the development of the Hainan petrochemical industry, especially the ethylene project.

Project is still under discussion
In fact, Qatar’s olefins project reported news last year. According to the information from the website of Hainan Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology on December 9, 2009, when the Deputy Prime Minister of Qatar and the President of QPI visited China in November, the Hainan Provincial Government, Qatar Petroleum International Company and CNOOC have signed a letter of intent. The QPI will be introduced to produce olefins from liquefied petroleum gas. However, on the 21st when seeking confirmation from the Merchants Department of the Yangpu District Economic Development Zone, the reply was that the project letter of intent was not signed and still under discussion.

It is understood that CNOOC has invested more than 24 billion yuan in Hainan, including Ya 13-1 gas field, Dongfang 1-1 gas field, Ledong gas field, and Dongfang Chemical City, Yangpu power plant, and pipeline company, etc. that have invested in the upper reaches of the past 20 years. Major projects, and 800,000 tons of methanol project and 2 million tons of fine chemical-olefin project started in Dongfang Industrial Zone in 2008 and 2009.

Will it affect tourism?

However, there are also criticisms that the large petrochemical industry developed in Hainan Province is incompatible with the direction of building an international tourist island. Pan Weibin, an environmental planning researcher at the School of Environmental Engineering of South China University of Technology, believes that such concerns are reasonable and that petrochemical projects will produce more or less polluting emissions.

It is understood that the petrochemical industry in Hainan Province is concentrated in the Yangpu Development Zone and Oriental City in the west of Hainan Island. Taking Yangpu as an example, it is about 130 kilometers from Haikou City and 280 kilometers from Sanya. It will take time to examine if it will affect the tourism industry.

However, considering the geographical conditions, Hainan has its own natural advantages in developing the petrochemical industry. Since the South China Sea is known as the “second Persian Gulf”, the total estimated reserves of recoverable natural gas in the sea area under jurisdiction of Hainan Province amounts to 4 trillion cubic meters and the oil reaches 2 billion tons. The Yangpu is located in the middle of the Industrial Corridor in the west of Hainan and is located in the center of international shipping routes between Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia. It is the nearest Lingang Industrial Zone to China’s development area of ​​[0.70 2.94%] oil from the South China Sea, which also makes Yangpu a One of the regions that is most likely to use offshore oil and gas resources to develop the oil and gas industry.

From the Xiamen PX to Zhangzhou and Nansha Petrochemical's relocation to Zhanjiang, the large-scale petrochemical project always needs a foothold. The coastal industrial base with a low population concentration may be more suitable for the development of the petrochemical industry.

Pan Weibin thinks, "No one wants to build petrochemicals on their own doorsteps. They should never use the economic development as an excuse to only take care of the interests of a certain party. They must balance, especially the local beneficiary government and external beneficiaries, to the local damaged residents. The equivalent compensation, therefore, to make a full EIA, especially to strictly implement environmental protection standards is an important part of the petrochemical project."

It is reported that in December last year, the "Environmental Impact Assessment Report of the Yangpu Economic Development Zone General Plan" was approved by the Ministry of Environmental Protection. This is also the result of the "Environmental Impact Assessment Ordinance for Planning" implemented on October 1, 2009. The approval of the first national-level planning EIA.