ASIACHEM: 2016-2020 China Coal Gasification Market Capacity will be 173 in Total, 16% of them are Coal to Olefins
2015-10-12
Since 2015, the international oil price has entered the range of $ 50-60/bbl, MEP of China has tightened up examination and approval for coal chemical projects, and coal chemical industry is facing the double pressure of economy and environmental protection. Under this background, coal chemical projects in China slow the pace, but do not stop. Coal chemical covers six main areas – coal to liquids, coal to methanol/olefins, coal to natural gas, coal to large scale ammonia, coal to ethylene glycol and coal to hydrogen, and a large number of coal chemical projects will finish the construction and be commissioned in 2016-2020.
ASIACHEM’s research shows that, under the background of international oil price of $ 50/bbl, China’s coal chemical project built in 2016-2020 will newly add effective syngas (CO+H2) amount of 57 mn m3/h, among, effective syngas amount for projects that have signed gasification technology will be 28 mn m3/h, accounting for 49.1%; while effective syngas amount for projects that have not signed gasification technology will be 29 mn m3/h, accounting for 50.1%.
Using the pulverized coal gasifier of 3000t/d coal throughput as benchmark, 2016-2020 China coal gasification technology potential market capacity calculated by ASIACHEM will be 173 gasifiers in total, meanwhile the corresponding 90000 Nm3/h oxygen ASU market capacity will be 167 in total. The 2016-2020 China coal gasification potential market shares is shown in blew figure.
2016-2020 China coal gasification potential market shares have following features:
Ø Due to huge volume of single project and large syngas requirement, coal to synthetic natural gas (SNG) accounts for the largest share for coal gasification potential market.
Ø Newly added pure coal to methanol projects are relatively less, most of coal to methanol units belong to the supplementary equipment of coal to olefins integrated project. Coal to olefins accounts for 16% of 2016-2020 coal gasification potential market.
Ø Although the number of coal to ethylene glycol projects is relatively more, syngas requirement for single project is small, coal to ethylene glycol accounts for 6% of 2016-2020 coal gasification potential market.
Ø Due to the continuous decline of international oil price and the price decrease expectation of China’s natural gas, whether adopts coal to hydrogen or natural gas to hydrogen in the newly building refining-chemical integration projects in the future still have the great uncertainty.
It is worth noting that the future trend of international oil price will have a great impact on the market space of 2016-2020 coal gasification and ASU. If the international oil price could rebound to about $ 80/bbl, China will put into building a considerable number of coal chemical projects in addition to the above prediction, and coal gasification market space will substantially increase. While if the international oil price is always blew $ 50/bbl, the enthusiasm of the newly building coal gasification will be greatly reduced.
The 7th Coal to Olefins Conference will be jointly organized by ASIACHEM and Coal Chemical Committee of Chinese Chemical Society on Nov.10-12 2015 in Ji’nan, Shandong, China. The upcoming conference will explore the development of olefins feedstock diversification trends, CTO policies and industry planning, updates of large-scale CTO projects and by-products value added utilization, CTO commercial demonstration projects update, CTO plants upgrade and optimization, as well as natural gas (or shale gas) – methanol – olefins value chain.