Sinopec Baling Petrochemical Caprolactam Industrial Chain Relocation and Upgrading Project Fully Connected
On December 15th, the "Dual Point" project of deepening strategic cooperation between Sinopec and Hunan Province, as well as the relocation and upgrading of the 600000 ton caprolactam industrial chain of Baling Petrochemical Company, were successfully completed, achieving a successful start-up. This marks the completion and operation of the world's largest and technologically advanced production and research and development base for caprolactam, and the first industrial application of Sinopec's new generation of green caprolactam technology with independent intellectual property rights and industry-leading capabilities.
As the first large-scale chemical relocation and upgrading project of Sinopec along the Yangtze River, this project is a demonstration project to solve the problems of "chemical encirclement of the river" and "chemical encirclement of the city", and promote the green and safe development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt. It has been listed as a demonstration project and benchmark project for the relocation of hazardous chemical production enterprises in densely populated urban areas by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
The total investment of this project is 15.35 billion yuan, which will relocate the Baling Petrochemical Caprolactam Industry Chain, which is less than 1 kilometer away from the Yangtze River and connected to the main urban area of Yueyang City, to the Hunan Yueyang Green Chemical High tech Zone, which is 3.1 kilometers away from the Yangtze River coastline, covering an area of 2650 acres. Following the concept of "safety and green, technological upgrading, construction before demolition, and doubling scale", 58 sets of new coal gasification, caprolactam, polyamide, synthetic ammonia, hydrogen peroxide, cyclohexanone, ammonia oxime, sulfuric acid production, ammonium sulfate, and public engineering units will be built, covering the entire industry chain from coal to hydrogen to polyamide. The annual production capacity of caprolactam will be increased from 300000 tons to 600000 tons.
This project adopts the green new technology construction of caprolactam, which has won awards such as the China Industry Award and the National Technology Invention First Prize. Among them, the esterification hydrogenation to produce cyclohexanone and the slurry bed anthraquinone method to produce hydrogen peroxide are the "Ten Dragon" scientific and technological research projects of Sinopec. The esterification hydrogenation to produce cyclohexanone unit is the world's first industrialized unit, which adopts a new reaction principle and subverts the traditional process technology route. It has the advantages of high carbon yield, low emissions of "three wastes", clean and efficient, and provides important technical support for the transformation and development of the industrial chain; The technology of using anthraquinone in the slurry bed to produce hydrogen peroxide and the technology of using cyclohexanone oxime to produce cyclohexanone oxime have been successfully scaled up for the first time, effectively improving the safety factor of the new hydrogen peroxide technology; The coal gasification unit is the first set of Sinopec to adopt the third-generation domestically produced coal water slurry water-cooled wall gasification process technology. The project is built according to the "5G Smart Factory" standard, with a localization rate of 99.9% for equipment and a complete localization of the central control system.
The project started construction in June 2021 and was fully handed over to China in July of this year. Since August, on the basis of the initial operation of the public engineering units, the polyamide, caprolactam and other process units have been successfully operated one after another, and high-quality products have been exported and manufactured. The project will reorganize dispersed devices, significantly increasing the degree of intensification. While doubling production capacity and reducing land area by one-third, the total water consumption will be reduced by 70%. The discharge of wastewater, COD (chemical oxygen demand), and comprehensive energy consumption per unit product will be reduced by 73%, 67%, and 20%, respectively. The staffing will be reduced by 60%, and labor productivity, product quality, and comprehensive competitiveness will be significantly enhanced.
As an important organic chemical raw material, caprolactam is widely used in fields such as degradable films, medical devices, high-end clothing, and automotive wheels. While implementing the relocation and upgrading of the caprolactam industry chain, Baling Petrochemical focuses on developing downstream polyamide business, leading the development of China Petrochemical's 2023 major research project "Key Technology Development and Industrial Demonstration of High end Polyamide Materials", promoting the upgrading and transformation of chemical raw materials to new chemical materials, and driving the development of downstream billion dollar industrial clusters. This project promotes the transformation and upgrading of traditional petrochemical industry towards high-end, intelligent, green, and integrated development through industrial chain upgrading, product chain extension, and value chain enhancement, providing new paths and models for the green transformation and development of heavy chemical industry along the Yangtze River.