What is new coal chemical industry?

The last time "coal chemical industry" appeared in an official document was the "Opinions on Strengthening East-West Interaction and Deepening the Development of the Western Region" issued by the National Development and Reform Commission, which called for "developing and utilizing coal resources and building a large-scale coal chemical industry base" ". Locally, Inner Mongolia has proposed the goal of “building the eastern region of Inner Mongolia into an important national modern coal chemical industry base by 2020” and has initially planned to build three nationally important modern coal chemical industry bases in the eastern region: Hulunbuir, Huolinhe, and Xilinhot. Other places are not far behind. Xinjiang, Shanxi, Anhui, Yunnan, Ningxia, Henan and other provinces and regions have also made plans to build world-class coal chemical industry bases. This reminds people of the dilemma of traditional coal chemical industry three years ago. Coal chemical industry is a process that uses coal as raw material and converts coal into gas, liquid, solid fuel and chemicals through chemical processing. Coal chemical industry is divided into two types: traditional and new. The traditional one involves coal coking, coal calcium carbide, coal-synthesized ammonia (fertilizer) and other fields. The new coal chemical industry usually refers to the four types of coal-to-liquids, methanol, dimethyl ether and olefins. At present, domestic traditional coal chemical industry has a long history, and new coal chemical industry has just started. Since 2004, the traditional coal chemical industry has begun to experience a surplus. Documents from the National Development and Reform Commission point out that based on the status of projects under construction and proposed in various places and future market demand forecasts, calcium carbide and coke production capacity will still be significantly higher than market demand in 2010. Overcapacity will trigger vicious competition among enterprises, causing product prices to drop and business risks to rise significantly. Therefore, national policies have listed it as a scope that restricts development. The fertilizer market is limited and saturated; coking is also restricted by the state. Just when all public opinion was calling for a halt to traditional coal chemical industry, things turned around and new coal chemical industry began to enter the market. With the entry of international and domestic investors, new coal chemical industry has begun to move from the laboratory to production. Chen Yafei suggested that some relatively mature and large-scale enterprises in the traditional coal chemical industry should gradually develop into new industries, actively go out, make full use of their existing technology, talent, and management advantages, and cooperate with coal-rich areas in the west through equity participation, holding, etc. At the same time, we will cooperate with scientific research institutes to find projects with market potential, make forward-looking preparations, cultivate new products, and slowly transform. There are currently 30 new coal chemical projects under construction in the new coal chemical era, with a total investment of more than 80 billion yuan. The new production capacity is 8.5 million tons of methanol, 900,000 tons of dimethyl ether, 1 million tons of olefins, and 1.24 million tons of coal-to-liquids. ton. The registered production capacity of methanol projects is 34 million tons, olefins are 3 million tons, and coal-to-liquids are 3 million tons. From a market perspective, petroleum resources are in short supply and oil prices have been operating at high levels. It is a trend to replace petroleum with coal chemical products. From a strategic perspective, petroleum is a strategic resource, 1/3 of which is imported, and there are situations where money cannot buy it. , reserve oil is very important; from a cost perspective, 4 tons of coal per ton of oil has obvious cost advantages; and, coal accounts for 94.3% of proven energy reserves. "Lack of oil, little gas, and rich coal" is China's Given the basic national conditions, the development of coal chemical industry is an inevitable choice. A new era of coal chemical industry has been born. However, for investors, new projects also have their own pros and cons. There are huge technical and financial risks in the new round of enterprises' attempts to seize the coal chemical industry. Each enterprise can only weigh it by itself, whichever is more beneficial to the two and which is less harmful to the other. Among them, coal-to-methanol and dimethyl ether have been put into production, and their output ranks among the top in the world. The momentum of blind development of methanol is gradually emerging. If it continues to develop, there will be an obvious excess supply of methanol by 2010. In addition, methanol has insurmountable problems such as low calorific value and mechanical corrosiveness when replacing raw materials in the transportation field. Therefore, relevant national standards for methanol gasoline have been delayed in launching. The National Development and Reform Commission issued a document in July 2006: It will no longer approve coal-to-liquid projects with an annual output of less than 3 million tons, methanol and dimethyl ether projects with an annual output of less than 1 million tons, and coal-to-olefin projects with an annual output of less than 600,000 tons. There is no need to worry about methanol. It is also a material that can replace the transportation field, but dimethyl ether is more recognized by experts. Dimethyl ether is the most mature alternative fuel in the civilian market. The National Development and Reform Commission’s opinions on the management of the coal chemical industry also clearly characterize dimethyl ether as a promising energy alternative and a fuel suitable for China’s energy structure.

Coal-to-liquids and olefins are still in the industrial testing and demonstration stage, Xu Bin said, "there are still technical and engineering risks." Chen Yafei said that coal-to-liquids is a high-profit industry. As long as the price of crude oil is US$40 per barrel, you can make money. Due to the high international oil prices and the scarcity of oil, coal-to-liquids and other alternative energy coal chemical industries have huge profit margins. "Only my country and South Africa are doing coal-to-liquid production. As long as one production line is successful, it is a great progress." Xu Bin said. Coal-to-liquids and olefins are not something that small and medium-sized enterprises can do. Only large enterprise groups such as Shenhua and Yankuang can truly enter these fields. According to the national requirement of no less than 3 million tons, 10,000 tons requires an investment of 100 million, and a project requires at least 30 billion yuan. At present, the leading company in China is Shenhua Group. The Ordos coal-to-liquids project in Inner Mongolia, which was officially put into operation in 2008, has attracted much attention. It is also the world's first direct coal liquefaction technology and was independently developed by Shenhua Group. The planned scale is 5 million tons of oil/year. The first production line of the first phase project is 1 million tons of oil/year. It has been listed as a coal chemical industry demonstration project in the "11th Five-Year Plan" development plan of China's coal industry. In addition to Inner Mongolia, Shenhua also has coal chemical projects in Ningxia, Shaanxi and other places. The coal-based olefin project with an annual output of 520,000 tons is a key project in the planning and construction of Ningdong Energy Chemical Base. It is also the first in the world to produce polyethylene as raw material. The large-scale propylene coal chemical project is scheduled to be completed and put into production in 2009. In Xinjiang, Shenhua holds an equity stake in Xinkuang Group 51 through capital increase and share expansion, and is developing a 10-million-ton coal liquefaction project with it. China Coal Group is the second largest coal company in China after Shenhua. Since the establishment of the "China Coal Group Energy and Coal Chemical Technology Center" in August 2006, Harbin's 600,000 tons of olefins and 2.2 million tons of methanol projects have been implemented one after another. The investment is expected to Reaching 10 billion yuan. In addition, China Coal has also begun to promote the coal chemical project in Ordos. For the coal chemical industry, Yankuang Group is unique. It chose overseas development. The Ruhr area in Westphalia, Germany, is known as the "hometown of coal" in the world. Yankuang Group built the southwestern Shandong coal chemical industry base here. Shandong's coal itself is on the verge of depletion, and the state encourages large state-owned enterprises like Yankuang to go global. Yankuang has also listed coal chemical industry as one of its main businesses in its repositioning. In addition to coal enterprises, the coal chemical boom has also affected other central enterprises. Recently, the coal chemical industry in Jincheng, Shanxi Province has aroused great interest from CNOOC and Sinochem Group. The two major groups will jointly make strategic investments in Jincheng coal chemical industry. In addition, leading companies in the energy field such as Shandong Luneng, China Huadian, and State Investment Corporation have also signed agreements in Xinjiang and other places, with investments expected to exceed 100 billion yuan.