Chinese private-sector firm Jiutai Energy has finally achieved on-specification polymer production at its new methanol-to-olefins (MTO) unit yesterday after two months of trials.
The unit, located in northwest China's Inner Mongolia, is currently running at a 60-70pc operating rate and Jiutai aims to increase this to a full operating rate in a month.
The MTO unit has a capacity to produce 280,000 t/yr of ethylene and 320,000 t/yr of propylene, which are utilized in making 280,000 t/yr of polyethylene and 320,000 t/yr of polypropylene.
The merchant MTO unit consumes 1.8mn t/yr of methanol at capacity. Jiutai operates a 1mn t/yr methanol unit at the same site and need to buy additional 800,000 t/yr methanol domestically.
Jiutai started the start-up process at the MTO complex at the end of March, but some facility issues paused the first start-up attempt in early April. The second start-up trial began at the end of April with Jiutai spending almost a month obtaining on-specification production.
An integrated 70,000 t/yr new butadiene unit started producing premium grade butadiene from mid-May.
Jiutai's new unit is the third inland-located merchant MTO facility that is not built with integrated coal-to-methanol infrastructure after Shenhua Yulin in Shaanxi province and China Coal Mengda in Inner Mongolia. These three MTO units contribute to a combined 4.8mn t/yr of methanol demand at capacity.
