Satellite to start up ethane cracker: Correction

corrects capacities and units

Chinese private-sector firm Zhejiang Satellite plans to start up its 1.25mn t/yr ethane-fed cracker at Lianyungang in east China's Jiangsu province in next year's first quarter. It will be the first steam cracker in China fed purely on ethane.

The company on 13 October received its first ethane vessel at its Lianyungang Hexing port carrying 21,500t of US-origin ethane. Its six very large ethane carriers will start shipments from November. Satellite has built a 160,000m³ ethane tank at Lianyungang port for the cracker project.

The cracker, which will be commissioned in early November, has fully integrated 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 (HDPE) unit. Satellite plans to start trial runs of its downstream HDPE unit first using bought ethylene before the start-up of the ethane cracker. The EO/MEG units will be the last to start, likely around March 2021. Planned output allocations from the swing EO/EG plants will be around 450,000 t/yr of refined EO and 1.2mn t/yr of MEG.

With all the derivative units operational, Satellite will be net short of ethylene supplies by about 200,000 t/yr.

The company is building a second 1.25mn t/yr ethane cracker, which is due to open in 2022. Downstream units along with the second ethane cracker will include a 400,000 t/yr HDPE unit, a 550,000 t/yr linear low-density polyethylene plant, a 720,000/910,000 t/yr EO/EG plant, a260,000 t/yr acrylonitrile unit and a 60,000 t/yr butadiene plant.