C1 Energy (Guangzhou) – Mar 11, 2010----Petcoke resource with medium and low sulfur content is expected to get tighter in Central China after Sinopec Jiujiang Petrochemical brings two new CFB boilers on stream in the near future.
Jiujiang Petrochemical has inked contract with a constructor for building of two 220t/h CFB boilers designed to burn mixture of coal and petcoke. The construction is due in about ten months.
When the two new boilers are operational, the refinery would phase out the four existing oil boilers, a source with the refinery said.
The refinery has initiated a project aiming to replace the costly oil with lower-price coal and petcoke for its boilers, the source revealed.
By the end of 2010, at the soonest, Jiujiang Petrochemical's petcoke would be produced for self consumption, the source noted.
That would further intensify supply tension of medium to low-sulfur petcoke in Central China market. Demand for these high-quality petcoke with sulfur content below 1.5% and ash content less than 0.5% is robust in the region, as they are the best materials for carbon products for aluminum making and substitutes for heavy oils in glass manufacture. Anqing Petrochemical, Wuhan Petrochemical, Jingmen Petrochemical, Changling Petrochemical and Jiujiang Petrochemical are major producers of such petcoke in Central China. Jiujiang Petrochemical yields about 25,000mt of the resource each month, taking up about 18% of the region's total.
Jiujiang Petrochemical plans to expand its topping refining capacity to 8-mil mt per year from current 5-mil mt during 2010 and 2011. But the refinery has not set up any plan to enlarge capacity of its delayed coker yet.
