rongsheng petrochemical refinery in stock

Rongsheng Petro Chemical Co, Ltd. specialises in the production and marketing of petrochemical and chemical fibres. Products include PTA yarns, fully drawn polyester yarns (FDY), pre-oriented polyester yarns (POY), polyester textured drawn yarns (DTY), polyester filaments and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) slivers.

China"s private refiner Zhejiang Petroleum & Chemical is set to start trial runs at its second 200,000 b/d crude distillation unit at the 400,000 b/d phase 2 refinery by the end of March, a source with close knowledge about the matter told S&P Global Platts March 9.

ZPC cracked 23 million mt of crude in 2020, according the the source. Platts data showed that the utilization rate of its phase 1 refinery hit as high as 130% in a few months last year.

Started construction in the second half of 2019, units of the Yuan 82.9 billion ($12.74 billion) phase 2 refinery almost mirror those in phase 1, which has two CDUs of 200,000 b/d each. But phase 1 has one 1.4 million mt/year ethylene unit while phase 2 plans to double the capacity with two ethylene units.

With the entire phase 2 project online, ZPC expects to lift its combined petrochemicals product yield to 71% from 65% for the phase 1 refinery, according to the source.

"Petrochemical contributes most of the companies" profit with healthy demand growth while the stakeholders have feedstock demand for their textile plants too," the source said.

Zhejiang Petroleum, a joint venture between ZPC"s parent company Rongsheng Petrochemical and Zhejiang Energy Group, planned to build 700 gas stations in Zhejiang province by end-2022 as domestic retail outlets of ZPC.

Established in 2015, ZPC is a JV between textile companies Rongsheng Petrochemical, which owns 51%, Tongkun Group, at 20%, as well as chemicals company Juhua Group, also 20%. The rest 9% stake was reported to have transferred to Saudi Aramco from the Zhejiang provincial government. But there has been no update since the agreement was signed in October 2018.

Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) has signed a broad framework agreement with China’s Rongsheng Petrochemical to explore domestic and international growth opportunities in support of ADNOC’s 2030 growth strategy.

The companies will examine opportunities in the sale of refined products from ADNOC to Rongsheng, downstream investment opportunities in both China and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the supply of liquified natural gas (LNG) to Rongsheng.

Under the terms of the deal, the companies will also study chances to increasing the volume and variety of refined product sales to Rongsheng as well as ADNOC’s participation as the China firm’s strategic partner in refinery and petrochemical projects. This could include an investment in Rongsheng’s downstream complex.

In return, Rongsheng will also look at investing in ADNOC’s downstream industrial ecosystem in Ruwais, UAE, including a proposed gasoline-to-aromatics plant as well as reviewing the potential for ADNOC to supply LNG to Rongsheng for use within its own complexes in China.

Rongsheng’s chairman Li Shuirong added that the cooperation will ensure that its project, which will have a refining capacity of up to 1 million bbl/day of crude oil, has adequate supplies of feedstock.

The Chinese group holds a 51% stake in Zhejiang Petroleum & Chemical Company (ZPC), which is currently building a major refining and petrochemical complex in Zhoushan, Zhejiang province, to comprise two oil refineries and two 1.4 million t/y ethylene plants.  The first phase is due for completion in 2020. Saudi Aramco agreed in February 2019 to take over the Zhoushan government’s 9% share in the project.

Rongsheng Petrochemical (brand value up 43% to US$2.3 billion) achieved very strong growth this year, rising two places in the chemicals ranking and jumpingfrom 10th to 8th place amongst global chemicals brands. The Chinese brand owns various globally significant facilities, including an integrated refining-petrochemical complex with the refining capacity of 40 million tons per annum.

As the world’s largest producer of various chemicals, the brand value of this giant Chinese brand is growing in connection with increased research and development of clean technologies, while its world-leading refining-petrochemical complex recovers and purifies carbon dioxide from the plants for use as feedstock to produce downstream chemical products (polycarbonates).

New Jersey, United States:A new business intelligence report released by Infinity Business Insights with title Global Refinery-Chemicals IntegrationMarket research report provides a thorough examination of the industry. This research provides an analytical representation of the sector, as well as current trends and future projections, in order to identify likely investment opportunities. The study includes information on the major market drivers, inhibitors, opportunities, and challenges. The study provides an in-depth examination of the market"s major segments, trends, drivers, constraints, competitive environment, and other critical elements.

Major Key Players in theRefinery-Chemicals IntegrationMarket : Hengli Petrochemical Co, Hengyi Petrochemical Co., Rongsheng, Sinopec, Dongfang Shenghong

Trusted current state analysis tools, such as Porter’s five forces analysis and SWOT analysis are employed in the report to assess the Refinery-Chemicals Integration market data to deploy a complete overview of the market. Furthermore, this report gives a complete review of the magnitude and application scope of the market around the world. A detailed overview of the purchasing criteria and difficulties confronted in the Refinery-Chemicals Integration business sector is also elaborated in this report.

Financial Associated Press, January 12 - Rongsheng Petrochemical announced that the 40 million T / a refining and chemical integration project (phase II) of Zhejiang Petrochemical, a holding subsidiary, was fully put into operation. Up to now, the oil refining, aromatics, ethylene and downstream chemical products units in phase II of the project have been fully put into commissioning, and the whole process has been opened. The company will further improve the commissioning of relevant process parameters and improve the production and operation level.

Abu Dhabi, UAE – November 12, 2019: The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) announced, today, it has signed a broad Framework Agreement with China’s Rongsheng Petrochemical Co., Ltd. (Rongsheng) to explore domestic and international growth opportunities which will support the delivery of its 2030 smart growth strategy.

The agreement will see both companies explore opportunities in the sale of refined products from ADNOC to Rongsheng, downstream investment opportunities in both China and the United Arab Emirates, and the supply and delivery of liquified natural gas (LNG) to Rongsheng.

The agreement was signed by His Excellency Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, UAE Minister of State and ADNOC Group CEO, and Li Shuirong, Chairman of Rongsheng Group.

H.E. Dr. Al Jaber said: “This Framework Agreement builds on the existing crude oil supply relationship between ADNOC and Rongsheng, which we are keen to enhance. The agreement covers domestic and international growth opportunities across a range of sectors, which have the potential to open new markets for our growing portfolio of products and attract investment to support our downstream and gas expansion plans.

Under the terms of the Framework Agreement, ADNOC and Rongsheng will explore opportunities for increasing the volume and variety of refined products sales to Rongsheng as well as ADNOC’s active participation as Rongsheng’s strategic partner in refinery and petrochemical opportunities, including an investment in Rongsheng’s downstream complex. In return Rongsheng will also explore potential investments in ADNOC’s downstream industrial ecosystem in Ruwais, including the proposed Gasoline Aromatics Plant (GAP) and the potential for ADNOC to supply and deliver liquified natural gas (LNG) for utilization by Rongsheng within its production complexes in China.

Shuirong said: “This Framework Agreement is a key milestone in Rongsheng Petrochemical’s strategic international expansion. ADNOC is an important trading partner, and we are confident of the win-win benefits of this partnership, particularly in realizing opportunities in the downstream space in Asia.

“The strategic cooperation with ADNOC will ensure that our ZPC project, which will have a refining capacity of up to 1 million barrels per day (mbpd) of crude, has adequate supplies of feedstock. Our valued partnership will enable Rongsheng Petrochemical to continue its expansion into the international oil market and we are confident Rongsheng Petrochemical will achieve enhanced market share and recognition in the global marketplace.”

The framework agreement supports ADNOC’s downstream expansion plans, which will see it create a world scale integrated refining and petrochemicals complex in Ruwais while pursuing integrated margins for its own hydrocarbons with in-market investments.

Rongsheng Petrochemical Co., Ltd. is one of the leading companies in China’s petrochemical and textile industry. In recent years, Rongsheng has been committed to developing both vertically and horizontally across the value chain, investing massively in multiple high-value oil and gas projects. Amongst them, Zhejiang Petroleum & Chemical Co., Ltd. (ZPC), in which Rongsheng has a controlling interest, is a 40 million tons per annum mega integrated refining and chemical project. Once operational, ZPC will be one of the largest-scale plants in the world.

China is the world"s second-largest oil consumer, and Chinese energy companies have steadily increased their participation in ADNOC’s Upstream and Downstream operations. At the same time, ADNOC has identified China as an important growth market for its crude oil and petrochemical products, as it moves towards boosting its oil production capacity to 4 million barrels per day (mbpd) by the end of 2020 and 5mbpd in 2030 and accelerates the implementation of its downstream expansion and international investment strategies.

In Asia and the Middle East, at least nine refinery projects are beginning operations or are scheduled to come online before the end of 2023. At their current planned capacities, they will add 2.9 million barrels per day (b/d) of global refinery capacity once fully operational.

The scheduled expansions follow a period of reduced global refining capacity. Net global capacity declined in 2021 for the first time in 30 years, according to the IEA. The new refinery projects would increase production of refined products, such as gasoline and diesel, and in turn, they might reduce the current high prices for these products.

China’s refinery capacity is scheduled to increase significantly this year. The Shenghong Petrochemical facility in Lianyungang has an estimated capacity of 320,000 b/d, and they report that trial crude oil-processing operations began in May 2022. In addition, PetroChina’s 400,000 b/d Jieyang refinery is expected to come online in the third quarter of 2022. A planned 400,000 b/d Phase II capacity expansion also began operations earlier this year at Zhejiang Petrochemical Corporation’s (ZPC) Rongsheng facility. More information on these expansions is available in our Country Analysis Executive Summary: China.

Outside of China, the 300,000 b/d Malaysian Pengerang refinery (also known as the RAPID refinery) restarted in May 2022 after a fire forced the refinery to shut down in March 2020. In India, the Visakha Refinery is undergoing a major expansion, scheduled to add 135,000 b/d by 2023.

New projects in the Middle East are also likely to be an important source of new refining capacity. The 400,000 b/d Jizan refinery in Saudi Arabia reportedly came online in late 2021 and began exporting petroleum products earlier this year. More recently, the 615,000 b/d Al Zour refinery in Kuwait—the largest in the country when it becomes fully operational—began initial operations earlier this year. A new 140,000 b/d refinery is scheduled to come online in Karbala, Iraq, this September, targeting fully operational status by 2023. A new 230,000 b/d refinery is set to come online in Duqm, Oman, likely in early 2023.

These estimates do not necessarily include all ongoing refinery capacity expansions. Moreover, many of these projects have already been subject to major delays, and the possibility of partial starts or continued delays related to logistics, construction, labor, finances, political complications, or other factors may cause these projects to come online later than estimated. Although the potential for project complications and cancellations is always a significant risk, these projects could otherwise account for an increase of nearly 3.0 million b/d of new refining capacity by the end of 2023.

Privately owned unaffiliated refineries, known as “teapots,”[3] mainly clustered in Shandong province, have been at the center of Beijing’s longtime struggle to rein in surplus refining capacity and, more recently, to cut carbon emissions. A year ago, Beijing launched its latest attempt to shutter outdated and inefficient teapots — an effort that coincides with the emergence of a new generation of independent players that are building and operating fully integrated mega-petrochemical complexes.[4]

2021 marked the start of the central government’s latest effort to consolidate and tighten supervision over the refining sector and to cap China’s overall refining capacity.[14] Besides imposing a hefty tax on imports of blending fuels, Beijing has instituted stricter tax and environmental enforcement[15] measures including: performing refinery audits and inspections;[16] conducting investigations of alleged irregular activities such as tax evasion and illegal resale of crude oil imports;[17] and imposing tighter quotas for oil product exports as China’s decarbonization efforts advance.[18]

The politics surrounding this new class of greenfield mega-refineries is important, as is their geographical distribution. Beijing’s reform strategy is focused on reducing the country’s petrochemical imports and growing its high value-added chemical business while capping crude processing capacity. The push by Beijing in this direction has been conducive to the development of privately-led mega refining and petrochemical projects, which local officials have welcomed and staunchly supported.[20]

Yet, of the three most recent major additions to China’s greenfield refinery landscape, none are in Shandong province, home to a little over half the country’s independent refining capacity. Hengli’s Changxing integrated petrochemical complex is situated in Liaoning, Zhejiang’s (ZPC) Zhoushan facility in Zhejiang, and Shenghong’s Lianyungang plant in Jiangsu.[21]

As China’s independent oil refining hub, Shandong is the bellwether for the rationalization of the country’s refinery sector. Over the years, Shandong’s teapots benefited from favorable policies such as access to cheap land and support from a local government that grew reliant on the industry for jobs and contributions to economic growth.[22] For this reason, Shandong officials had resisted strictly implementing Beijing’s directives to cull teapot refiners and turned a blind eye to practices that ensured their survival.

But with the start-up of advanced liquids-to-chemicals complexes in neighboring provinces, Shandong’s competitiveness has diminished.[23] And with pressure mounting to find new drivers for the provincial economy, Shandong officials have put in play a plan aimed at shuttering smaller capacity plants and thus clearing the way for a large-scale private sector-led refining and petrochemical complex on Yulong Island, whose construction is well underway.[24] They have also been developing compensation and worker relocation packages to cushion the impact of planned plant closures, while obtaining letters of guarantee from independent refiners pledging that they will neither resell their crude import quotas nor try to purchase such allocations.[25]

To be sure, the number of Shandong’s independent refiners is shrinking and their composition within the province and across the country is changing — with some smaller-scale units facing closure and others (e.g., Shandong Haike Group, Shandong Shouguang Luqing Petrochemical Corp, and Shandong Chambroad Group) pursuing efforts to diversify their sources of revenue by moving up the value chain. But make no mistake: China’s teapots still account for a third of China’s total refining capacity and a fifth of the country’s crude oil imports. They continue to employ creative defensive measures in the face of government and market pressures, have partnered with state-owned companies, and are deeply integrated with crucial industries downstream.[26] They are consummate survivors in a key sector that continues to evolve — and they remain too important to be driven out of the domestic market or allowed to fail.

In 2016, during the period of frenzied post-licensing crude oil importing by Chinese independents, Saudi Arabia began targeting teapots on the spot market, as did Kuwait. Iran also joined the fray, with the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) operating through an independent trader Trafigura to sell cargoes to Chinese independents.[27] Since then, the coming online of major new greenfield refineries such as Rongsheng ZPC and Hengli Changxing, and Shenghong, which are designed to operate using medium-sour crude, have led Middle East producers to pursue long-term supply contracts with private Chinese refiners. In 2021, the combined share of crude shipments from Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, and Kuwait to China’s independent refiners accounted for 32.5%, an increase of more than 8% over the previous year.[28] This is a trend that Beijing seems intent on supporting, as some bigger, more sophisticated private refiners whose business strategy aligns with President Xi’s vision have started to receive tax benefits or permissions to import larger volumes of crude directly from major producers such as Saudi Arabia.[29]

The shift in Saudi Aramco’s market strategy to focus on customer diversification has paid off in the form of valuable supply relationships with Chinese independents. And Aramco’s efforts to expand its presence in the Chinese refining market and lock in demand have dovetailed neatly with the development of China’s new greenfield refineries.[30] Over the past several years, Aramco has collaborated with both state-owned and independent refiners to develop integrated liquids-to-chemicals complexes in China. In 2018, following on the heels of an oil supply agreement, Aramco purchased a 9% stake in ZPC’s Zhoushan integrated refinery. In March of this year, Saudi Aramco and its joint venture partners, NORINCO Group and Panjin Sincen, made a final investment decision (FID) to develop a major liquids-to-chemicals facility in northeast China.[31] Also in March, Aramco and state-owned Sinopec agreed to conduct a feasibility study aimed at assessing capacity expansion of the Fujian Refining and Petrochemical Co. Ltd.’s integrated refining and chemical production complex.[32]

Commenting on the rationale for these undertakings, Mohammed Al Qahtani, Aramco’s Senior Vice-President of Downstream, stated: “China is a cornerstone of our downstream expansion strategy in Asia and an increasingly significant driver of global chemical demand.”[33] But what Al Qahtani did notsay is that the ties forged between Aramco and Chinese leading teapots (e.g., Shandong Chambroad Petrochemicals) and new liquids-to-chemicals complexes have been instrumental in Saudi Arabia regaining its position as China’s top crude oil supplier in the battle for market share with Russia.[34] Just a few short years ago, independents’ crude purchases had helped Russia gain market share at the expense of Saudi Arabia, accelerating the two exporters’ diverging fortunes in China. In fact, between 2010 and 2015, independent refiners’ imports of Eastern Siberia Pacific Ocean (ESPO) blend accounted for 92% of the growth in Russian crude deliveries to China.[35] But since then, China’s new generation of independents have played a significant role in Saudi Arabia clawing back market share and, with Beijing’s assent, have fortified their supply relationship with the Kingdom.

Vertical integration along the value chain has become a global trend in the petrochemical industry, specifically in refining and chemical operations. China’s drive to self-sufficiency in chemicals is a key factor powering this worldwide trend.[42] And it is the emergent “second generation” of independent refiners that it is helping make China the frontrunner in developing massive liquids-to-chemicals complexes. Following Beijing’s lead, Shandong officials appear determined to follow this trend rather than risk being left in its wake.

As Chinese private refiners’ number, size, and level of sophistication has changed, so too have their roles not just in the domestic petroleum market but in their relations with Middle East suppliers. Beijing’s import licensing and quota policies have enabled some teapot refiners to maintain profitability and others to thrive by sourcing crude oil from the Middle East. For their part, Gulf producers have found Chinese teapots to be valuable customers in the spot market in the battle for market share and, especially in the case of Aramco, in the effort to capture the growth of the Chinese domestic petrochemicals market as it expands.