CNOOC shell butyl octanol will be put into production

CNOOC shell 250000t / a butyl octanol unit will be put into operation in March! There are two phases of the project. The first phase of the project was put into operation in early 2006. The main facilities include 11 production units and supporting utilities, wharves, storage and transportation, and environmental protection facilities. The second phase of the project includes the ethylene cracking unit and its derivatives production unit with a capacity of 1.2 million tons / year officially accepted by CNOOC in November 2016, and the newly built styrene / propylene oxide and polyol unit funded by CNOOC. Among them, 250000t / a butanol / octanol unit is a downstream supporting derivative of ethylene cracking unit.

Since the second half of 2017, the company has gradually opened up the ethylene process, so far, the butanol / octanol unit has gradually met the starting conditions. Location and price echelon. CNOOC shell butyl octanol unit is located in Dayawan Economic and Technological Development Zone, Huizhou City, Guangdong Province, which is located in South China. According to the production capacity distribution of butyl octanol and downstream products in China, the northern goods supply to the downstream through land transportation / shipping, and the product price gradually increases from the north to the south, which has become a major feature of butyl octanol products. According to the comparison of annual average prices of n-butanol from 2013 to 2017, South China has been in the highest price echelon for a long time. As the first set of butanol and octanol unit in South China, CNOOC shell has attracted sufficient attention and attention from domestic and foreign suppliers and suppliers, while the high-end characteristics of price echelon lead to its strong cost advantage, thus prompting some original suppliers in South China market to formulate potential "exit" plans.

In addition, the production of CNOOC shell butanol octanol unit leads a new round of production capacity launch boom. 2018 is the year when butanol and octanol are put into production in mainland China. In this year, CNOOC shell and Jiangsu Huachang (phase II) units are likely to be put into production. In addition, there is a certain possibility to extend the petrochemical industry, which breaks the deadlock in the vacuum period of butanol and octanol production since 2015. Taking n-butanol as an example, after 2013, the domestic butanol and octanol units were put into centralized operation, and the start-up level of butanol industry fell to a low level. Since then, with the slowdown of production progress and the improvement of demand side, the industry's start-up rate has risen year by year. Considering that a number of butanol units will be converted to octanol in 2016-2017, in a narrow sense, the operating rate of the n-butanol industry has risen to more than 75% in the past two years.

Under the background of shrinking new production capacity, domestic demand is rising rapidly, and with the increasing export volume of downstream products, the overcapacity rate of butanol and octanol industry is significantly reduced, while a new round of unit production may mean that the industry's operating rate will decline immediately. As a new supply increase in South China, the downstream demand side of South China also needs to be straightened out. Compared with the situation that butyl acrylate occupies the first demand side in the downstream of n-butanol in East China, the downstream of n-butanol around Guangzhou is firmly occupied by butyl acetate, and the second is butyl acrylate, which governs Qianxin, CNOOC and other units, while the other downstream such as coating and plasticizer still occupy a large proportion. Generally speaking, it is of great significance for CNOOC shell to put into operation whether in terms of the new supply and demand pattern in South China or the prosperity of the butanol and octanol industry in mainland China. From another point of view, the production of CNOOC shell plays an important role in steadily improving the localization of butanol and octanol and redefining the pricing power in South China market. Especially in the context of anti-dumping of n-butanol, as a bridgehead in South China, new capacity will rapidly fill the gap in the above regions.