PTA (Purified Terephthalic Acid), a downstream product of petroleum, is an important raw material for producing polyester fiber and polyester. At present, the global capacity is mainly concentrated in Asia, especially in the mainland of China, where both capacity and consumption are ranked the first in the world. This article will introduce to you how Oriental Petrochemical (Shanghai) Corporation can break through this first-class battlefield and market and develop business opportunities with green production and intelligent manufacturing!
Economic recovery Meet new challenges
In 2020, COVID-19 brought down the global economy. Naturally, the petrochemical industry, which is closely related to the overall economy, was also deeply impacted. Not only the downstream demand shrank, but also the logistics control during the epidemic prevention caused inventory accumulation. With the advent of vaccines, the epidemic is expected to slow down and domestic demand for people's livelihood will gradually recover. In addition, the organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) announced a reduction in production, which led to the recovery of oil prices, as well as the regional comprehensive economic partnership (RCEP), China's flexible import measures are conducive to the growth of the mainland's petrochemical industry.
At present, the total PTA production capacity in mainland is 68.7 million tons per year. In the next three years, it will grow by 10 million tons per year. It is estimated that by 2025, the total PTA production capacity will be close to 100 million tons, far higher than the demand of downstream polyester. Facing the dilemma of oversupply, whether we can have a stable downstream market has become the focus of PTA industry.
Oriental Petrochemical (Shanghai) Corporation, which mainly produces PTA, supplies 63% of its PTA output to FEIS. With its excellent quality, convenient transportation and reasonable inventory,FEIS can gain more advantages in the downstream polyester market. In the future, Oriental Petrochemical (Shanghai) Corporation will further study the possibility of production expansion to enhance its competitiveness. Far Eastern Group also plans to establish a joint venture with Sinopec to build a PTA plant with a production capacity of 2 million tons in Yangzhou. At the same time, it will set up a downstream PET bottle production line in Yangzhou, which will be the next step for the group's petrochemical layout.
system optimization Start digital Reengineering
In addition to cooperating with the group's affiliated enterprises and giving full play to its comprehensive advantages, Oriental Petrochemical (Shanghai) Corporation also actively promotes digital transformation and consolidates its intelligent niche. As early as many years ago, E-fly system, vehicle management system, intelligent inspection system, etc. were introduced to change a number of management work from traditional manual operation to system operation. In addition, PTWs system and hidden trouble detection system were developed in cooperation with Far Eastern IT company, so that the factory can operate safely, energy saving and efficiently under the optimal human resource allocation. However, with the increasing number of operating systems and the difference among the construction time and environment of each system, when employees operate, they have to switch between systems, which virtually increases the difficulty and time cost of operation. In order to optimize the operating system and in response to the government's "industrial Internet + safe production" plan (2021-2023), SHEF team joined hands with Far Eastern IT company to discuss the feasibility of system interconnection. After many investigations, it decided to introduce the PI system developed by OSIsoft of the United States, which can store data for more than five years, match more than 450 data interfaces, and conduct statistical analysis on the data, so as to build a bridge between the bottom control network and the upper executive information system network of the factory.
After connecting all kinds of system data successfully, a unified management platform is needed. In August 2020, the SHEF team joined hands with Far Eastern IT company officially launched the SHEFs smart platform development project with the Far Eastern Union Chemical Corporation (Yangzhou) as the test site. This platform is mainly divided into three regions and 43 functional modules. It takes risk pre control as the core, combines with five risk elements "human, machine, material, environment and management", vertically collects all kinds of data in the production process, horizontally covers the whole cycle management of safety, environmental protection, health and fire protection, and carries out deeper data acquisition and analysis, so as to enhance the prevention and control ability of enterprises for various risks.
After eight months of testing, SHEFs intelligent platform initially completed the framework construction, functional area division and basic management design in April 2021. It not only attracted Yangzhou TV station to interview and report, but also won the recognition of vice minister Liu Wei and director Sun Guangyu of Ministry of Emergency Management of P.R.C who came to investigate the information system. In the future, the team will focus on production safety risk perception and assessment, monitoring and early warning, response and disposal ability and other aspects and continue to improve the construction of the platform, expand the production application functions such as energy management, equipment and facilities management, strengthen the safety production foundation and production technology innovation ability, and ensure the sustainable vitality of the enterprise through continuous breakthrough and innovation.
Intelligent carbon reduction Build a green factory
When it comes to sustainability, Far Eastern Group has always been the leader of green industry in East Asia. As a member of the group, Oriental Petrochemical (Shanghai) Corporation is also ahead of schedule in energy conservation and carbon reduction.
On the management level, since the establishment of the plant, Oriental Petrochemical (Shanghai) Corporation has adopted ISO standard and DuPont safety concept. After the plant was put into operation in 2006, an energy conservation Committee was set up to continuously promote energy conservation work and plan " improvement management measures" to encourage colleagues to actively put forward proposals for energy conservation improvement. At the same time, by eliminating odor and reducing noise, as well as the addition of online VOCs monitor and other ways, it tries to improve the surrounding environment of the plant. In view of the fact that the disposal of industrial waste is also an issue that enterprises are bound to discuss, Oriental Petrochemical (Shanghai) Corporation not only invites high-quality manufacturers to legally recycle and dispose of industrial waste, but also starts from the source to reduce waste generation and has successively obtained a number of environmental protection related certification. It has passed the "clean production" audit in 2009, obtained ISO9001 / 14000 / 45001 certification in 2010. In 2017, it won the title of Shanghai water-saving enterprise, in 2019, it obtained the ISO 50001 energy management certification, and the fourth batch of national green manufacturing factory. At the end of 2020, in response to the call of national green development, Oriental Petrochemical (Shanghai) Corporation further launched ISO 14064-12018 (greenhouse gas standard) certification, strengthened carbon emission monitoring in production cycle, tracked carbon footprint, and strengthened energy conservation and emission reduction.
On the technical level, Oriental Petrochemical (Shanghai) Corporation has an experienced professional team, which participated in the design from the initial stage and improved the common problems of other plants; After the project was put into operation, the company also invested in process optimization, energy saving and consumption reduction, successively completed projects such as tail gas drying system transformation, methyl acetate recovery and pump energy saving improvement, greatly reduced the energy consumption, and it actively introduced AI technologies such as APC and PTW e-system, established energy management board to display the energy consumption per unit in real time. Then it conducted intelligent inspection to carry out big data statistics and analysis on the meter readings to ensure the smooth operation of the plant. In addition, in order to improve the reliability and predictive maintenance function of the equipment, since 2019, the team has successively installed on-line condition monitoring sensors for 93 key equipment to monitor the operation status in real time, successfully informed the staff of abnormalities of the oxidation reactor mixer and dryer and avoided equipment damage and sudden accidents. Due to its outstanding performance, Oriental Petrochemical (Shanghai) Corporation has achieved the goal of energy saving set by the government every year and won the national green factory award.
Adhering to the development concept of "health, safety, environmental protection and energy conservation", Oriental Petrochemical (Shanghai) Corporation takes innovation as the cornerstone, new technology, new process and new equipment as the means to continuously improve the speed of digital transformation, at the same time, it increases carbon reduction efforts in all aspects, practice green production and intelligent manufacturing, so as to make mutual benefit for enterprises and the environment and create a win-win situation.
