Datang International Power and the Shenhua Ningxia Industry Group have contracted Lurgi (Frankfurt, Germany) for two large-scale propylene plants, which will be the first users of Lurgi’s coal-to-plastics technology. Total investment in the two plants will come to over USD 1.33 billion for each and Lurgi’s contract to provide the central technology amounts to over USD 133 million. The contracts cover the technology license, engineering services and the supply of special equipment. The two complexes will each produce 500,000tpa of propylene from coal. At the heart of the process is Lurgi’s technology for raw gas conditioning, methanol synthesis (5000tpd) with the MegaMethanol process, providing the syngas feedstock for the Methanol-to-Propylene (MTP) process. The MTP complexes, which will signal the first step to diversification into the field of coal-to-chemicals and fuels in China, are due to start commercial operation in late 2008 or early 2009. In another coal-to-chemicals project, the China National Coal Group is developing a major plant in Harbin, China, which is scheduled to start producing 600,000tpa of olefin products in 2009. This plant will use domestic technology developed by the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which is based at the Harbin plant. The plant will produce olefin products to feed the production of ethylene and propylene. The complex will produce 10 million tpa of coal and 2 million tpa of methanol compared to the current capacity of 2.6 million tpa of coal and 140,000tpa of methanol.
