According to the official Weibo "Shanghai Petrochemical Online" news of Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical Co., Ltd., on the morning of May 29, the raw material pipeline in the cracking furnace area flashed and exploded during the maintenance and start-up process in the No. 2 ethylene old area of the olefin department of Shanghai Petrochemical Company. 14 people were injured. The injured were immediately sent to the hospital for treatment. At present, the fire at the scene has been extinguished, and the cause of the accident is under investigation.
Shanghai Petrochemical has two sets of ethylene, 400,000 tons/year for No. 1 and 300,000 tons/year for No. 2. The accident involved an ethylene plant with a capacity of 300,000 tons/year, a cracking C5 capacity of 39,000 tons/year, and a cracking C5 monthly output of about 3,000 tons. The time for the resumption of work has not yet been determined.
The loss of the supply of cracked C5 may lead to a decrease in the operating load of Shanghai Petrochemical’s 215,000 tons/year C5 separation unit, affecting 300-500 tons/month of isoprene production, and 300-500 tons/month of piperylene. Dicyclopentadiene 500-600 tons/month. However, considering that Shanghai Petrochemical can purchase raw materials to crack C5 supplements from outside, the impact is expected to be limited.
At present, the annual production capacity of polyethylene in my country is more than 24 million tons, and a single set of equipment has very limited impact on the market. However, June coincided with Work Safety Month, and the State Council Safety Committee just issued a notice of the 2021 National “Work Safety Month” in May.
Whether the accident will lead to stricter safety inspections, which will affect production and supply, still requires further follow-up policy changes. In addition, northern provinces and cities have started to stop production due to environmental protection issues, and southern provinces and cities have started off-peak production due to power restrictions, and power restrictions have limited production. Production capacity may shrink further.
Therefore, the Shanghai petrochemical accident itself has a relatively limited impact on the olefin market, but the combination of safety production and power and production restrictions on the follow-up policy impact on the entire chemical industry is still worthy of attention.
Source: Mobile Public Account
