What will happen to coal glycol tomorrow?

Coal-based ethylene glycol, once one of the “leaders” of the new coal chemical industry, is now experiencing unprecedented difficulties. On the one hand, oil prices continued to decline, and the cost advantage of coal-to-ethylene glycol to ethylene glycol almost disappeared. On the other hand, the public’s dispute over coal chemical industry caused by the haze problem became increasingly fierce, resulting in a A series of related industrial policies have tightened. Even worse, after several years, the coal-to-ethylene glycol demonstration plant was unable to successfully meet production standards. All kinds of unpredictable signs can not help the industry begin to use a skeptical eye to re-examine the darling of this new type of coal chemical industry.

Oil prices plunge in cost advantages

“At present, the price of crude oil has fallen below US$60/barrel, and the cost advantage of coal-to-ethylene glycol over ethylene-ethylene glycol has been reversed. The ethylene process has achieved a price competitive advantage. In the international market, the price of ethylene glycol has also been repeated. The new low, from the average price of 7,300 yuan/ton in the first half of last year, was reduced to about 5,000 yuan/ton, which was a drop of more than 30%, and refreshed at a new low for six years. The industry is on the verge of losses," said Dr. Wang Yaxiong, dean of the Institute of Chemical Engineering at Inner Mongolia University of Science and Technology.

According to Wang Yaxiong, at present, there are two major technological routes for the production of ethylene glycol in the world: one is the traditional crude oil—naphtha—ethylene glycol, if calculated according to crude oil price below US$60/barrel, Its production cost is about 4,000 yuan/ton, and the other is China's original coal-based glycol. The industrialization promotion of this technology device is based on the cooperation between the Institute of Material Structure of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Jiangsu Danhua Technology Group. Technology-based, process costs 4,500 yuan / ton. While the global economy has not yet emerged from the gloom of the recession and the price of crude oil has continued to decline, the ethylene process has created a significant living space for the coal-to-ethylene glycol project that is currently booming in China. Since last year, it has become a common practice that many coal-to-ethylene glycol plants have been put into production for maintenance or postponed construction.

Wang Yaxiong said that according to the comprehensive cost calculation, coal-based ethylene glycol can only have a competitive advantage with ethylene when the price of crude oil is above 80 US dollars per barrel. Although domestic coal-to-ethylene glycol projects mostly use lower-priced lignite as raw materials, and the project owners are mostly large-scale coal companies in transition, coal-to-ethylene glycol plants have a large initial investment, and the technology is not fully mature and cannot be full. Load operation, equipment depreciation costs, weakened its cost advantage. If market participants predict that the price of oil will fall within the range of US$70-$80/barrel in the past two years, and coal prices have stabilized, the future of domestic coal-to-ethylene glycol projects will suffer major setbacks.

It is understood that in the industry while singing a wave of coal-based ethylene glycol sound wave after wave of waves, while many still optimistic about the prospects for the development of industry insiders are optimistic. Xu Dianhong, a senior engineer at China National Petroleum Corporation's Lanzhou Chemical Research Center, said: "The basis for better future expectations is mainly the large domestic supply gap. This year, China's ethylene glycol demand is expected to reach 15 million tons, and the actual output of the two process routes is only 6.6 million tons, a gap of 8.4 million tons, and a self-sufficiency ratio of less than 50%. In the next few years, it will be difficult to change the external dependence of ethylene glycol in the short term.”

Henan Nenghua Group's 200,000-ton/year coal-to-ethylene glycol project in Luoyang is currently undergoing a stand-alone test. A person in charge of the company who did not wish to be named revealed that the impact of ethylene law does exist, but from the domestic point of view, the new capacity of the naphtha route integration device is very limited in the next few years, and the market will not be very large. According to statistics, from 2014 to 2015, only about 1.3 million tons of ethylene glycol was put into operation in the domestic ethylene process, and the new capacity of coal-based ethylene glycol will reach 4 million tons, which is three times as much. At the same time, the ethylene ethylene glycol in foreign countries, especially in the Middle East, is constrained by trade policies and measures such as freight rates and China's tariffs, and its price of entering China may not be absolutely dominant. In addition, despite the ethylene glycol price dipping, the ethylene method is pressing harder and harder, but now coal-based glycol still has 500 yuan/ton of gross profit. In the long run, the global economic stagflation pattern will surely be reversed, and oil prices will rise to 80 US dollars/barrel with the recovery of the macro economy and restore the economic normality. At that time, coal-based glycol can gradually replace imports and usher in a golden period of development.

Sudden changes in industrial policy

According to Wang Yaxiong, “In fact, the coal chemical industry, including coal glycol, has large water consumption, pollutant emissions, and difficulty in handling. It does not completely solve the environmental problem, and the more stringent industrial policy is concerned. It is difficult to pass the new project will certainly be stranded, even if it has been put into production enterprises are difficult to base.China's environmental protection situation is increasingly severe, especially the public's continued concern and concern about the hazy climate, directly promoted the country's rapid adjustment of relevant industrial policies, coal Chemicals bear the brunt of this, and new types of coal chemical including coal-to-ethylene glycol projects were encouraged to be developed in the 2009 State Council “Planning and Revitalization of the Petrochemical Industry” and in the 2011 National Development and Reform Commission “Industrial Structure Adjustment Catalog (2011 Edition)”. As a result, it has blossomed all over the place, but now it has clearly begun to enter a low point, and many projects have been postponed or eventually stranded due to issues such as environmental protection."

It is understood that as of the end of 2014, there are more than 20 projects under construction and proposed coal-based ethylene glycol projects in China, with planned annual production capacity of 3 million tons, step by step in Henan, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Guangdong, Shaanxi, Jiangsu and Fujian. Area. However, it is unclear whether many projects can be started on time or put into operation smoothly. Jiangsu Danhua Group, a leading coal-based ethylene glycol company in China, caused a number of projects not to be put into production due to environmental problems. At the end of 2014, the company's 200,000-ton/year coal-to-ethylene glycol project in Anyang, Henan Province, was subject to administrative penalties because it had not been put into trial production without the approval of the environmental protection authority. At the same time, the Luoyang City 100,000 tonne/year coal-to-ethylene glycol project, which was scheduled to be trial-produced at the end of 2014, was also delayed due to environmental issues until the first half of 2015. In addition, some areas with relatively short water resources are also on the new coal-to-ethylene glycol project, and the progress of the project is worrying.

Chang Zhenguo, general manager of Guizhou Xixi Coal Chemical Company, said that the company is building a 300,000-ton/year coal-to-ethylene glycol project. Currently, the company's infrastructure has been basically completed and equipment and material orders have been completed, but the water resources assessment program is being improved. The most worrying issue is the issue of medium and long-term water resources. At present, the water intake point of the company is a reservoir called Shaba River, and the second phase of the Jixi Power Plant is also at the same water intake point, and it is inevitable that there will be competition for water.

Since last year, the state has successively introduced a number of policies and regulations aimed at increasing environmental protection, which undoubtedly has a major impact on the future development of the coal chemical industry. On August 20th, 2014, the state issued a clear signal for the urgent braking of coal chemical industry. In the Catalogue of Encouraged Industries in the Western Region officially promulgated by the National Development and Reform Commission, the coal chemical project was not included in the plan as expected. On January 1, 2015, the newest "Environmental Protection Law" known as history was formally implemented. This is not only the first major revision of the "Environment Protection Law" in the 25 years since its implementation, but also in the management of smog, information disclosure, and environmental protection. There have been major breakthroughs in other areas. At the new “Environmental Protection Law” news briefing held on March 2nd, 2015, the person in charge of the Department of Politics and Law of the Ministry of Environmental Protection stated that the Ministry of Environmental Protection is studying the reform of the environmental assessment system and the revision of the “Environmental Impact Assessment Law” and will Into the national work plan. On March 4, 2015, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a notice of the implementation plan of the “2015 Special Action for Industrial Green Development”. It is required that by the end of 2015, coal consumption should be reduced by more than 4 million tons. The attention of the coal chemical industry needs to be brought to light. The industry must improve the level of clean coal utilization and reduce atmospheric emissions.

In addition, industry sources disclosed that on March 6, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Finance jointly issued the “Action Plan for Clean and Efficient Use of Coal in the Industrial Sector (2015-2020)” and proposed that by 2017, coking, industrial furnaces, coal chemical, and industrial boilers In these four areas, coal consumption will be reduced by 80 million tons, smoke and dust emissions by 500,000 tons, carbon dioxide* emissions by 600,000 tons, and nitrogen oxides by 400,000 tons.

Technology bottleneck is difficult to resolve and upgrade

What will happen to coal tomorrow? In a variety of doubts, breaking the technological bottleneck as soon as possible is the only consensus reached by the industry.

The coal-based glycol technology jointly developed by Jiangsu Danhua Group and the Fujian Academy of Chinese Academy of Sciences is an independent technology that has been implemented in China earlier. This technology was first applied in the 200,000-ton/year coal-to-glycol project of Inner Mongolia Tongliao Gold and Coal Chemical Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Danhua Group, and became the first national demonstration project of coal-to-ethylene glycol approved by the National Development and Reform Commission. . However, since the coal-to-chemical plant was opened in December 2009 and the qualified products have not yet reached production, the National Development and Reform Commission has not yet accepted this project.

According to an insider from Inner Mongolia Tongliao Gold and Coal Chemical Company, “In 2013, due to frequent breakdowns of various types of equipment, it was repeatedly shut down for maintenance and the operating rate was only 54%. In 2014, the average production line load of the company’s production line only reached 76%, producing a total of 12.66 ethylene glycol. Million tons, the total cost of ethylene glycol is about 500 million yuan, and the production cost is about 4,500 yuan/ton, which is a significant decrease of 1,800 yuan per ton in 2013; meanwhile, the unit price of ethylene glycol is 5,189 yuan/ton, and the gross profit rate is up to The first task of Tongliao Gold Coal in 2015 is to strive to achieve an average annual production load of more than 85% of the designed capacity, and annual production and sales of 145,000 tons of ethylene glycol and 55,000 tons of oxalic acid, and the output rate of excellent products will be stable at 98%. the above."

In addition to failing to reach production, relevant experts in the industry also disclosed that at present, the quality of domestically produced coal-based glycol products is even more embarrassing. China's ethylene glycol products are mainly used for the production of polyesters, antifreezes, unsaturated resins and adhesives, paint solvents, cold lubricants, surfactants, and polyester polyols, of which polyester dominates the consumption of ethylene glycol in China. %the above. At present, the impurity content of coal-based glycol products and the UV transmittance of the product cannot fully meet the requirements of the polyester grade, and can only be blended with ethylene glycol at a low proportion. If the requirements of the downstream polyester market cannot be met, coal-based ethylene glycol has almost no market prospects at all, and the cost advantage of competing with ethylene is also meaningless.

With regard to problems such as the incomplete maturation of coal-based glycol technology and the promotion of industrialization projects, experts from East China University of Science and Technology, Professor Fang Dingye and Dean of the School of Chemical Engineering of Northwest University Ma Xiaoxun pointed out that: First, it is a catalyst problem. Several domestic research institutes have The catalysts developed have problems such as short life, content of precious metal components, and difficulty in control of hot spots during the reaction; the second is whether the final product can reach the polyester grade yet to be verified; third, there is no accurate technology. Economic evaluation and environmental assessment, the extent of competitiveness in the end also need to be cautiously tested. Therefore, future industrial development still needs further research and experimentation. It is not appropriate to push forward on a large scale, and the key is to do a good job of project demonstration.

The technical bottleneck that is difficult to solve is stepping up the innovation of upgrading coal-based glycol. A staff member of Fujian Institute of Matter Structure of the Chinese Academy of Sciences stated that under the support of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ strategic pilot technology project, national major scientific problem-oriented project and the national “973” program, the institute has developed a new type of high-efficient, low-cost catalyst and technology. A complete set of technological processes, including a complete set of second-generation coal-based glycol technology with complete intellectual property rights. Compared with the first-generation technology, the second-generation coal-to-ethylene glycol technology further optimized the process flow, reduced the precious metal loading of the catalyst and replaced the toxic metal, greatly improved the performance and life of the catalyst, and drastically reduced the cost. The environmental protection is also greatly improved.