For a plant it is building at its home site, Jiangsu Sailboat Petrochemical (Lianyungang City, Jiangsu / China), a subsidiary of Shenghong Group (Wujiang, Jiangsu / China; www.shgroup.cn/en), has licensed the advanced methanol-to-olefin (MTO) process jointly developed by the UOP division of Honeywell (Morris Township, New Jersey / USA; www.honeywell.com) and Ineos. The plant being billed as the world’s largest single-train MTO unit with capacity to produce 833,000 t/y of ethylene and propylene is due on stream in 2015.

Using methanol derived from cheap and abundant coal, Honeywell said the Chinese company will be able to maximise yields of high-value petrochemicals while reducing costs. Since 2011, Honeywell has licensed three MTO projects in China. The first facility, due to start up this year, will have capacity for 295,000 t/y of C2 and C3. A second, set to go on stream in 2014, will also produce 295,000 t/y of the two plastics feedstocks. A 600,000 t/y plant using the UOP/Hydro MTO process will start up next year as well.

For the conversion of olefins into polyolefins, Jiangsu Sailboat Petrochemical has acquired a licence from LyondellBasell (LBI, Rotterdam / The Netherlands; www.lyondellbasell.com) to use the “Lupotech T” and “Lupotech A” processes in a 300,000 t/y LDPE/EVA swing plant. The processes are characterised by low manufacturing and investment costs, fast start-up and grade changes and high quality LDPE and copolymers with up to 40% EVA covering the entire range of melt flows and densities, the polyolefins giant said.