Secco Ethylene Cracker Starts Operation   

On March 19 the 900 000 t/a ethylene cracker, which is the heading unit in Shanghai Secco Petrochemical Company's 900 000 t/a ethylene project, started wet commissioning and manufactured qualified ethylene, marking a successful start-up. It only took 10 hours during the period of starting to put into raw materials to manufactured qualified products, which is the world leading level in the history of ethylene cracker start-up.    The successful start-up of the cracker formed a firm base for the whole project to enter into commercial operation, while BP (Britain Petroleum), one of the shareholder of Shanghai Secco, spinning off its petrochemical business into a new subsidiary--Innovene. This cracker is also the first joint venture in China's ethylene production industry, which reflected a whole opening up for the petrochemical industry.   The whole US$2.7 billion project is composed of 8 sets of world class production units, one set of waste acid recycling unit and matched public engineering facilities. It is a super petrochemical project jointly invested by Sinopec Corp., Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical Company, Ltd. and BP, presently the largest joint venture integrated petrochemical project, and is the united ethylene production unit with the largest single line production capacity in China, listed as a national key project of 2004 and drawn attentions from all over the world.     Shanghai Secco's 900 000 t/a ethylene project formally started construction on March 28, 2002. It successfully actualized mechanical completion on December 30, 2004 and started operation on March 18, 2005 (CCR 2004 No.27, 2005 No.2).