Chinese joint venture Fujian Gulei Petrochemical (Gulei PC) has started up its 100,000/700,000 t/yr ethylene oxide/ethylene glycol (EO/MEG) unit at Zhangzhou in southeast China's Fujian province.
Feedstock was fed in on the morning of 7 August and on-specification production was reached after 13 hours of operation.
Construction of the Gulei PC project started in June 2019 and was completed by the end of April this year. Its the third MEG production line in Fujian after Fujian Refining and Chemical's 400,000 t/yr and Sinochem Quanzhou's 500,000 t/yr units.
Gulei PC is a joint venture between state-controlled oil firm Sinopec with 25pc, Fujian Chemical with 25pc and private-sector firm Xuteng Investment owning the remainder. Sinopec formed the joint venture in 2016, although progress was slow with the project design only approved in August 2018.
