Construction Starts on Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical's 1.2 Million Tonnes/Year Ethylene Plant

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On October 25, construction officially began on the 1.2 million tonnes/year ethylene plant, the main facility of Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical Company Limited's comprehensive technical transformation and quality upgrading project. Located in Jinshan District, Shanghai, the project is a major Shanghai municipal engineering project with a total investment of approximately RMB 21.307 billion. The main ethylene plant is scheduled for completion by the end of October 2028. Once operational, the new plant will replace the existing 700,000 tonnes/year ethylene plant, raising the company's annual ethylene production capacity to 1.2 million tonnes.

The ethylene plant now under construction adopts low-energy-consumption ethylene separation technology independently developed by Sinopec. Supporting facilities include a 400,000 tonnes/year polyethylene plant, an ethylene circulating water system, a condensate station, a heating station, a fire water booster pump station and a flare gas recovery facility. The related works have completed general contracting tendering. A contracting party formed by Sinopec Engineering Incorporation and Sinopec Tenth Construction Company Limited won the bid, with a contract value of approximately RMB 5.604 billion and a planned construction period of 822 days.

Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical's comprehensive technical transformation and quality upgrading project was launched in June 2025. The plan calls for building 15 new units, revamping 5 units and shutting down 18 outdated units within the existing plant site, while maintaining the existing refining capacity of 14 million tonnes of crude oil per year. The new chemical units also include production facilities such as a 200,000 tonnes/year butadiene extraction unit, a 700,000 tonnes/year cracked gasoline hydrogenation unit, a 400,000 tonnes/year aromatics extraction unit and a 300,000 tonnes/year vinyl acetate unit, forming a downstream processing system that supports the new ethylene plant.

Under the project construction plan, overall environmental protection investment exceeds RMB 1.3 billion, and the project will simultaneously implement energy-saving renovations of the refining system and upgrades of environmental protection facilities. Shanghai's energy conservation review document requires that the new ethylene plant achieve a unit product energy consumption of no more than 551.85 kilograms of standard oil per tonne. Once fully completed, the company is expected to supply nearly 3 million tonnes per year of high-end chemical products and fine chemical raw materials to downstream customers.