China's Lianyungang Petrochemical, a subsidiary of private-sector petrochemical firm Zhejiang Satellite, is likely to have fed in ethane to its new steam cracker yesterday, according to a market source, but the company declined to comment.
The ethane cracker, located at Lianyungang in east China's Jiangsu province, has nameplate capacity of 1.25mn t/yr of ethylene and requires 1.63mn t/yr of ethane supplies. It is the first steam cracker in China fed purely on ethane.
The company had aimed to start up the ethane cracker at the end of March, and the feed-in timing aligned with its plan. Lianyungang Petrochemical in early March bought some ethylene cargoes from the domestic market to pre-cool its ethylene storage tank.
It on 28 February discharged its first very-large ethane carrier (VLEC) ethane vessel Seri Everest of 98,000m³ (53,000t) departing from Energy Transfer's new Orbit terminal in Texas.
Two of its six VLECs have been delivered. Its second VLEC the 98,000m³ Seri Erlang was delivered in January. The shortfall of ethane is covered by two Navigator MGC vessels of 38,000 m³ (20,000t) each.
Lianyungang Petrochemical has built a 160,000m³ ethane tank at Lianyungang port for the ethane cracker.
The ethane cracker is integrated to downstream units including two 720,000/910,000 t/yr ethylene oxide (EO)/ethylene glycol (MEG) units and a 400,000 t/yr high-density polyethylene unit. The downstream units are expected to start operation in late April.
The start-up of the cracker will likely worsen the oversupply in China's domestic EO and MEG markets.
