Hengli Petrochemical’s 400 kt/year HDPE project

China’s Hengli Petrochemical (Dalian) Chemical Co., is building a 400 kilotonne/year-high density polyethylene (HDPE) unit at its integrated refining and petrochemical project in the Hengli Petrochemical Industrial Park (HPIP) on Changxing Island in Dalian, Liaoning Province, China.

It has selected Rotterdam-headquartered LyondellBasell’s Hostalen ACP polyethylene process technology. LyondellBasell says its Hostalen ACP process technology manufactures high-performance, multi-modal HDPE resins with an industry-leading stiffness/toughness balance, impact resistance, high stress cracking resistance and processing advantages used in film, blow moulding and pipe applications. LyondellBasell has more than 250 polyolefin process licenses for PP and PE technologies.

In 2010, Hengli Group entered the field of petrochemicals, by investing and constructing the Hengli Petrochemical (Dalian Changxing Island) Industrial Park. The industrial park, located in Dalian Changxing Island Economic Zone, will be constructed in two phases, with early planning of 10 sq km. The first phase was the construction of the PTA project in 2010. The second step was the preparation of the refinery and chemical complex in 2014.

Using technology from Invista America, Hengli Petrochemical produces 6.6 million tonnes/year of purified terephthalic acid (PTA), with a total investment of RMB34 billion. In the field of PTA, Hengli says it has “become a global super-large scale PTA production base with significant industrial, regional and technology advantages.”

Alongside a final-conversion refinery designed to process 400,000 barrels/day of crude oil into mostly naphtha, the refining complex also includes an aromatics plant that maximises output of high-purity paraxylene to serve as feedstock for Hengli’s existing PTA plant.

Hengli, which broke ground on the crude-to-paraxylene refining complex in late 2015, plans to invest a total of RMB74 billion to complete the integrated project, which it says is the largest refinery project in China ever to be approved.