The refinery brought on stream a 2.2-mil-mt/yr delayed coker on Sep 15 and reaped qualified products three days later, the source said, adding the unit was running smoothly at present.
The source also revealed that Tahe Petrochemical would boost its crude throughput capacity to 5-mil mt per year in 2011.
As reported earlier, Tahe Petrochemical kicked off 3.5-mil-mt/yr heavy crude upgrading project in consideration of rising crude output from Tahe Oilfield and stronger demand for oil products and bitumen from Xinjiang market, as well as high viscosity of Tahe crude. It was expected to have a 1.4-mil-mt/yr gasoil/gasoline hydrogenation unit operational by the end of 2010.
Besides the above two units, Tahe Petrochemical is equipped with 1.2-mil-mt/yr delayed coker and 1-mil-mt/yr gasoil/gasoline hydrogenation unit.
Tahe Oilfield is the second largest oilfield of Sinopec in terms of production capacity, producing 6.6-mil mt of crude in 2009. Most of its crude was supplied to Xi'an Petrochemical and Tahe Petrochemical.
China Chemical Weekly: http://news.chemnet.com/en/detail-1411716.html
