China Market Insider Sinopec Develops New Crude-to-Chemical Process

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Chinese petrochemical company Sinopec has developed a new process to convert crude oil directly into chemicals. The new "Crude Oil to Chemicals" (COTC) process is a major technological breakthrough. China is thus becoming the global technology leader in catalytic cracking of crude oil.

Beijing/China – The new COTC process, which the Sinopec Research Institute of Petroleum Processing has been researching for some time, has now been tested for the first time on an industrial scale by Sinopec subsidiary Yangzhou Petrochemical. According to PROCESS China, the test results showed that the chemical yield of low-carbon olefins and aromatic hydrocarbons was more than 50 percent higher than conventional processes.

Some market observers see the "future of petrochemicals" in such COTC processes, in which crude oil is processed directly into chemicals. Because global demand for fuels will gradually decline, triggered by the electrification of the automotive industry and similar trends. Still, the need for chemicals will continue to rise, petrochemical groups around the world are looking for alternative business models for their refineries. With COTC, chemicals are advancing to become the main product of refineries, displacing products such as heating oil and fuels for aircraft and vehicles.

Catalytic cracking, as now developed to industrial maturity by Sinopec, can skip the usual atmospheric and vacuum distillation processes of traditional crude oil refining, writes PROCESS' Chinese sister editorial.

By converting crude oil directly into light olefins and aromatic hydrocarbons, the new process can even "achieve chemical yields of up to 70 percent under certain circumstances," PROCESS quotes Li Mingfeng, director of Sinopec's research institute.

The new COTC process can thus produce significantly more ethylene, propylene, and light hydrocarbons per barrel of oil than the petrochemical industry's most advanced refinery Verbund sites. At the same time, energy consumption and emissions can be reduced considerably.

Sinopec researchers have solved critical detail problems in years of experiments with catalytic cracking to accomplish "the highly efficient conversion of molecules with considerable differences in their behavior in the same catalytic reaction," writes chemical industry newspaper Zhongguo Huagong Bao.

A technological breakthrough in chemical production?

The secret of Sinopec's process lies, among other things, in the "optimal matching of reaction temperature and catalytic activity", writes the chemical newspaper, which also hails the new process as a "technological breakthrough in chemical production" by Chinese corporations.

The crude oil is first separated into light and heavy distillates at Sinopec, which specifies another chemical industry trade publication in China, the "Zhongguo Huagong Xinxi Zhoukan." Two separate riser reactors for catalytic cracking then implemented the optimal parameters for producing the high-value chemicals in each case, the magazine writes.

The technical difficulty of the new COTC process stems from the fact that the naphtha and diesel fractions in crude oil have a higher hydrogen content than the heavy oil fractions but are still more difficult to crack because of their smaller molecules, the Chinese trade publication writes. Therefore, very special catalysts and strict process parameters are required.

Sinopec is thus following a technological route of COTC development that Exxon Mobil has been using in Singapore since 2014 and is also being actively developed by Saudi Aramco. Together with petrochemical group Sabic, Saudi Aramco is planning a large plant in Yanbu on the shores of the Red Sea.

Sinopec's breakthrough appears to support some analysts' prediction that the petrochemical industry could become increasingly focused on crude oil in the coming years, and again less on natural gas than in the past decade.

In China, the Hengli Petrochemical group in the coastal city of Dalian has also already started up a COTC project designed to maximize the production of paraxylene (PX) from crude oil, although the technical process is different. Zhejiang Petrochemical is also investing in COTC.

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