Abstract

After several years of weakness, the chemical and petrochemical industries are beginning to recover, especially in the United States and the Middle East, where raw materials are relatively cheap. In terms of 316L stainless steel and corrosion-resistant alloys, highly corrosive chemicals, biofuels and fertilizers are its main growth areas.

Figure 1

Regional Overview

More and more North American producers are using ethane as a feedstock, and fewer are using crude oil as a feedstock. Several ethane-to-ethylene plants are under construction or in operation. Among the projects under construction are the construction of an ethylene cracking plant in Louisiana by Axiall; the expansion of the No. 1 polyethylene unit at Nova's Alberta Red Deer; and the renovation and construction of a new pipeline network at the Dow Chemical Company's Gulf Coast production plant to install new facilities at its Louisiana production plant. Canadian investments include Nova's new cracking unit at its Corunna ethylene plant in Ontario and expansion of its Joffre in Alberta and Moore in Ontario.

S. industrial recovery attracts foreign investment. For example, the South African company Sasol has begun operating the world's first ethylene tetramerization plant in LakeCharles, Louisiana. Sasol South Africa is also undertaking front-end engineering Westlake the construction of an ethane cracking furnace and a downstream derivatives facility. The Italian company Tecnimont and Foster Wheeler are currently collaborating on several projects in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

The shale revolution in the United States has reduced the voice of Latin America's petrochemical and refining industries in pricing. In Brazil, imports increased and exports declined. Mexico, however, is modernizing the Mexican National Oil Company (PetroleosMexicanos) with the aim of increasing its annual production of petrochemicals by 235 per cent. Oxychem of America and Mexichem have established a joint venture in Texas to build an ethane production plant, Braskem Idesa will build a new petrochemical production plant in Veracruz, Mexico State.

Another dynamic region is the Middle East, where petrochemical industry growth is the fastest in the world: the GCC has grown by 19 per cent annually over the past five years. Saudi Arabia is the fastest growing. Jacobs has been awarded a supply contract from Sadara (a joint venture between Saudi Aramco and Dow Chemical) to build three polyethylene production facilities, and Sumitomo expects to build a production facility along the Red Sea. A French-Arab joint venture is building an organic peroxide production plant in Jubail (Al-Jubail). Foster Wheeler is building the Jazan petrochemical project, and Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) and ExxonMobil International (ExxonMobil) are building rubber and elastomeric projects in Al-Jubail. Elsewhere in the Middle East, the cartel is spending $25 billion billion by 2020 to expand its chemical and petrochemical industries. Cartel Oil and Shell will build a petrochemical production plant in Ras Lafan, and Kuwait plans to build an aromatic hydrocarbon production plant. Russia is a rich oil and gas country. Sibur's polymer production facility in Toborsk has been put into operation. The company will cooperate with Gazprom (Gazprom) to build a petrochemical production facility in Belogorsk.

Unlike the United States, Asia has not benefited from cheap raw materials, but the region's rapid economic development has made up for this disadvantage. The next few years will maintain a strong growth momentum. Although the real estate is weak, but the car sales, fertilizer, fine chemicals, specialty chemicals growth, urbanization process accelerated. ExxonMobil International (ExxonMobil) recently completed the largest expansion of its chemical plant in Singapore. The company said that the modified process is quite advanced. Foster Wheeler is building a synthetic rubber plant for Lanxess. BASF has a new resin and electroplating plant in Shanghai, China, and a new tBA plant in Nanjing. Huntsman and Sinopec will build propylene oxide (P0) and methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) production plants in Nanjing. India's annual chemical exports increased by 8-9%. The technical renovation and expansion of the oil refining and petrochemical plant in Jamnagar (Jamnagar) is still under way. Technip is in the process of building a new PTA plant for JBF Petrochemical, and a refining and petrochemical production facility in Rajasthan is also under construction. INEOS Technologies has authorized Vung Ro Petroleum to build a polypropylene production plant using its technology. Projects are also under way in Mongolia, South Korea and Thailand.

Figure 2

Automotive and infrastructure markets remain weak. It is difficult to see the growth, after a few months still can not be sure, the British Ineos Group (Ineos) in Grangemos (Grangemouth) plant finally survived the disaster, continue. BASF began construction of a new toluene diisocyanate (TDI) production facility in Ludwigshafen (Ludwigshafen), Germany, and earlier this year BASF announced an investment in a resin production plant in Münster. French company Total is investing in the transformation of its petrochemical plant in Carling. BASF is building a car exhaust catalyst production plant in Slaska, Poland, while Mol plans to build a synthetic rubber plant in Hungary.

Technology and Products

Today's innovations revolve around increasing efficiency, improving safety and reducing emissions. Automation is the main driving force for improving efficiency and failure protection. The cooperation projects include Yokogawa Electric Co., Ltd. (YOKOGAWA Electric Corporation) to Chevron Phillips (Chevron Phillips) in Baytown, Texas production plant automation equipment, Metso (Metso) to China Guangdong Petrochemical Company (Sino-Venezuela Guangdong Petrochemical Company) to provide intelligent valve controller. Metso also provided Neles and Jamerbury valves to Saudi Sadara Chemical Joint Enterprise, and provided automatic control valves, on-off valves, accident shut-off valves, ball valves and butterfly valves installed with ND9000 intelligent valve controller in a total contract manner.

In order to better prevent short-term emissions, the company has recently developed the XOMOX Flowseal series butterfly valve. The focus of the refining, petrochemical and chemical industries is to make sampling and testing easier and safer. In order to protect employees from harm, the role of robots in the inspection process is increasing. Austria BHDT company newly developed "Zero Dead Volume" high pressure sampling valve can eliminate the danger of high temperature and high pressure sampling.

Fig. 3 High Pressure Sampling Valve

Figure 4 XOMOX Flowseal Series Butterfly Valve

Fertilizer

The resurgence of the worldwide chemical industry has energized the market for high-strength, corrosion-resistant nickel, titanium, zirconium and manganese alloys. The fertilizer industry is a good example. Many plants currently under construction use the ammonia production technology developed by KBR or the urea production technology developed by Stamicarbon. Stamicarbon is a subsidiary of Maire Technimont, Inc. The company has developed a patented technology for urea production in cooperation with Sandvik. Sandvik company specially developed Safurex316L stainless steel for this technology. Many of the plants under construction use Stamicarbon technology, such as Azerbaijan, China, the United States (Oklahoma), Romania, Russia, and Iraq have also used this technology to transform old plants.

Biofuels

The demand for biofuels market will increase in the coming years. BP has developed a technology for producing feedstocks from syngas and ethanol. BASF is building a plant in California to produce BDO from sugar. M & G Chemicals will build a biorefinery in China to convert biomass into ethanol and ethylene glycol. Evonik and Lanza Tech are developing a technology to produce plastics from waste syngas. France's Solvay is installing new equipment to reduce energy consumption at the Chalampe oxalic acid plant.

Figure 5 Biorefinery (left) Ethanol plant (right) may be the main market for 316L stainless steel growth.

Several projects are promoting the use of biofuels for aviation. One of these is the project of Boeing, Emirates United Airlines and Total, the three companies working together to develop a biofuel production base for aviation in the UAE. Emirates has a Boeing aircraft that has been using biomass fuel produced in the UAE for demonstration flights. Another important market for biofuels is the petrochemical industry itself. Producers are looking for organic matter to replace crude oil. For example, tire manufacturers mainly use butadiene, a petroleum derivative, to produce synthetic rubber. However, Michelin believes that there will be a shortage of butadiene after 2020, and the company is studying possible alternatives and has built a pilot plant for this purpose. Other companies are working on similar projects.

Algae

The most promising resource for biofuels is algae. In recent years, biofuels are mainly produced by ethanol, which is a very corrosive alcohol. More recently, producers are looking to replace ethanol with relatively non-corrosive microalgae production. Microalgae have many advantages over other biofuels. The number of microalgae increases several times in a day and is 15 times the amount of ethanol produced. Moreover, microalgae production is not performed once or twice a year, but continuously. The algae are produced in sealed tanks using ethanol and glycerol in a chemical process called transesterification. The process requires the use of 304 stainless steel to make the reactor, 316L stainless steel to make the centrifugal pump, pressure safety valve and vacuum safety valve.

Disclaimer: This article is transferred from "Stainless" 2022 Issue 3. The purpose of reprinting is to convey more information. It does not mean that 316l stainless steel belt manufacturer Zhongxing Yide Stainless Steel agrees with its views and is responsible for its authenticity. The content of the article is for reference only. If copyright issues are involved, please call 13606188783 to deal with them as soon as possible.

316l stainless steel belt manufacturer Zhongxing Yide Stainless Steel was established in 2012. It is located in the Andali Building near Wuxi Dongfang Steel City, Jiangsu Province, a well-known stainless steel market in the country. It has an excellent geographical location and convenient transportation. It is a company specializing in low-carbon stainless steel and integrating storage, A comprehensive enterprise integrating processing and trade distribution.

316l stainless steel strip manufacturer Zhongxing Yide Stainless Steel specializes in 304L stainless steel, 316L stainless steel, 317L stainless steel, 409L stainless steel, 436L stainless steel, 904L stainless steel, 301L stainless steel and other low carbon stainless steel plates, stainless steel coils, stainless steel strips, stainless steel flat steel, with a stock of more than 1000 tons of materials, complete specifications and sufficient supply. At the same time, 316l stainless steel strip manufacturer Zhongxing Yide stainless steel can provide various stainless steel plate processing services according to customer requirements: Kaiping, slitting, wire drawing, mirror, oil grinding, polishing, punching, bending, leveling, slitting, cutting, rolling, punching, etc.