PetroChina Guangdong Petrochemical Company will adopt advanced heavy oil processing technology from Honeywell UOP for its integrated petrochemical complex in Jieyang, Guangdong province, China. The new facility will have an annual crude processing capacity of 20 million tons, helping to meet a national energy security strategy while transforming PetroChina Guangdong into a more fully integrated petrochemicals supplier.

Honeywell UOP will provide a range of technology licenses, engineering design, key equipment, and state-of-the-art catalysts and adsorbents, operator training, technical services for startup and continuing operation.

“This is the most economically sound solution for the scale and complexity of PetroChina’s operations,” said Bryan Glover, vice president and general manager for Honeywell UOP’s Petrochemicals and Refining Technologies business. “Our technologies will enable PetroChina Guangdong to produce aromatics on a large scale because of its ability to integrate refining operations with a full aromatics complex. We are working to make it one of the most efficient plants in the world.”

The project includes a 3.7 million tons per annum (mtpa) Unicracking™ hydrocracking unit, which converts heavy vacuum gas oil into the raw materials for motor fuels and petrochemicals. The facility also will include two Honeywell UOP CCR Platforming™ units, each with a capacity of 3.0 mtpa, to produce fuels and aromatics, and hydrogen essential for other processes in the plant.

In addition, the plant will have a 2.6 mpta Light Desorbent Parex™ aromatics complex to produce high-purity paraxylene, the primary component of many plastic resins, films and fibers. This complex will be the largest single-train paraxylene unit in the world. The aromatics block includes the UOP Sulfolane™, Isomar™ and Tatoray™ processes and a UOP Olefin Removal Process unit to ensure maximum performance of the Parex process.

Trial operations at the refining complex are expected to start in October 2021, while trial operation at the petrochemical units will begin two months later.

Honeywell UOP is the world’s leading licensor of process technology to produce aromatics. As of 2018, Honeywell licensed more than 100 complexes and more than 700 individual process units for production of aromatics, including more than 370 CCR Platforming process units, 160 Sulfolane units, 80 Isomar units, 60 Tatoray units, and 100 Parex units worldwide.

PetroChina Guangdong is a subsidiary of the China National Petroleum Corporation. PetroChina Company Ltd. is the largest producer and distributor of petroleum and natural gas in China.