Sinopec completes Guangzhou expansion

China Petroleum and Chemical Corp. (Sinopec Corp.) has completed a two-year expansion project at its Guangzhou refinery in southern Guangdong province, doubling the plant’s nameplate capacity to 15.7 million metric tons per year (261,069 bpd) from 7.7 million metric tons per year. Sinopec began the Guangzhou refinery expansion project in early 2005. Total cost of the expansion program was about 4 billion RMB (US$516 million). In addition to the No. 1 FCC expansion, Sinopec also built an 8 million metric ton per annum (MTPA) crude distillation unit, a 2 million MTPA diesel hydrogenation unit, a 1.2 million MTPA hydrocracker, a 1 million MTPA jet fuel hydrogenation unit, a 2.1 million MTPA hydrorefining unit, as well as a 100,000 cubic meter/hour hydrogen generation unit and a 1 million MTPA delayed coking unit. (February 28, 2007)