Research and Development Forecast of China Propylene Market, 2013-2015

In 2012, the total global production capacity of propylene was about 104 million tons; the cracking propylene accounted for 57% of the total production capacity; refinery propylene accounted for 33% and the propylene with other processes account for about 10%. Asia, North America and West Europe etc. have been always the world most concentrated production places of propylene.

As the domestic ethylene and large refinery projects are controlled by the national macro policy, coupled with the difficult implementation of the crude oil source of small refinery enterprises, the domestic propylene production is highly monopolized. In 2012, China’s total production capacity of propylene was about 17 million tons, the devices of which mainly concentrated in the top two groups, namely Sinopec Group and CNPC, accounting for about 90% of China’s total production capacity. In addition, CNOOC has a set of propylene device with the production capacity 500,000 tons per year; some subordinated refinery enterprises with small scale of CHEMCHINA, Sinochem International Corporation and other companies also produce the propylene; adding the some small refinery enterprises, all these above form China’s propylene production pattern.

At present, there are more than 70 propylene manufacturers in China, whose production mainly concentrates in Northeast, Northwest, East and South China; the annual production capacity of most enterprises exceeds 100,000 tons, however, the propylene of these enterprises are basically used for the production of polypropylene and other chemical derivative products with little commercialization. The domestic new projects or large-scale capacity expansion also basically comes from these refineries. The propylene manufacturers that can make the propylene commercialized and sold in the market mainly concentrate in Shandong province and West China as well as some particular manufacturers in North China and East China.

As the market situation of 2013~2014 shows, the dehydrogenation of propane to propylene device of private enterprises will be sequentially put into operation and then China’s propylene supply pattern will have a shift?The import will decline and the market control capability of Sinopec Group and CNPC will be decreased.

With the accomplishment of Construction and being put into operation of several large ethylene cracking devices, the production capacity of ethylene’s cogeneration to propylene will be further improved. For quite a long period of time in the future, the production capacity of China’s propylene will grow at a rapid speed; it is estimated that the production capacity of propylene will reach 24 million tons per year by 2015.