Yankuang Develops Coal Chemicals

Established in 1976, Yankuang Group Co., Ltd. is located in Jining of Shangdong province in East China with advanced economy and brisk coal consumption. It is a super large group with major support from the state and has 50 wholly-owned companies, companies with controlling shares and companies with equity participation. The total asset value is RMB22.844 billion and the annual sales revenue is more than RMB11.258 billion.     Yanzhou Coal Co., Ltd. with controlling shares from Yankuang Group is a coal enterprise listed in stock markets of New York, Hong Kong and Shanghai. The company has raised RMB5.8 billion from stock markets, accounting for 36.2% of the total funds the coal industry of China has raised from stock markets.      For long years Yankuang Group has implemented the development strategy of “basing itself on coal and laying equal emphasis on coal and non-coal operations”. A mode of diversified and comprehensive operations based on coal, coal chemical and electrolytic aluminum and also including power generation, mine shaft construction, construction materials, machinery processing and foreign trade has been formed.      Since 2004 Yankuang Group has focused its operations on coal chemicals and constructed 3 coal chemical plants.      The installation and debugging in Yankuang International Coking Co., Ltd. came to the final stage on Dec. 9, 2005. The drying of 1# coke oven newly installed has been started and production will be launched in the first half of 2006 according to the schedule. The company is the second largest coal chemical enterprise of Yankuang Group after Yankuang Cathay Coal Chemical Co., Ltd.  that started production on Nov. 17, 2005. Yankuang Guohong Coal Chemical Co., Ltd. also started construction in May 2005. The construction of basic facilities in the company is already completed today. The 3 coal chemical enterprises in Southwest Shandong funded by Yankuang Group with nearly RMB10 billion are in shaping.      Yankuang International Coking Co., Ltd. started construction on June 24, 2004. It has a total investment of RMB2.284 billion. It is jointly funded by Yankuang Group, CVRD of Brazil and Itoh & Co., Ltd. of Japan. (CCR2004, No. 16) Yankuang Group holds 70% equity in the registered capital. Yankuang International Coking Co., Ltd. has a capacity of 2.0 million t/a coke and 200 000 t/a methanol. Two coke ovens are the second-hand equipment from Germany, but they have a capacity of 2.0 million t/a coke and are the biggest modern coke ovens in China and Asia. The 200 000 t/a methanol unit uses coke oven gas as raw material. The advanced partial pure-oxygen conversion process has the features of high heat efficiency, short process flow, simple equipment structure and good environmental protection.     Yankuang Cathay Coal Chemical Co., Ltd. that started production on Nov. 17, 2005 has a total investment of RMB2.7 billion. It is jointly funded by Yankuang Group and Cathay Coal Chemical Holding Co., Ltd. of the United States. The American partner holds 25% equity. (CCR2005, No. 35) Yankuang Cathay Coal Chemical Co., Ltd. has a capacity of 240 000 t/a methanol and 200 000 t/a acetic acid. Several domestic process technologies with intellectual property right are used in the production.     Yankuang Guohong Coal Chemical Co., Ltd. that started construction in May 2005 has a total investment of RMB2.15 billion. It uses the coal slurry pressurized gasification technology and the low-temperature methanol desulfurization and decarbonization technology introduced respectively from the United States and Germany. Besides 500 000 tons of methanol, 21 000 tons of sulfur, 93 600 m3 of argon, 20 000 m3 of liquid oxygen and 10 000 m3 of liquid nitrogen can also be produced in a year as byproducts. The construction period is 20 months. After the start of production, 720 000 tons of high-sulfur coal will be used for a year. (CCR2004, No. 16)    The establishment of these 3 coal chemical enterprises has enabled Yankuang Group to quickly develop from a pure coal production enterprise to an enterprise making the production of both coal and chemicals. Lunan Chemical Fertilizer Plant that was first merged by Yankuang Group has also become a cradle for training coal chemical technicians for Yankuang Group.     Yankuang Guizhou Energy Chemical Co., Ltd. is a company controlled by Yankuang Group. It acts as an investor in Guizhou on behalf of Yankuang Group. It will seize the opportunity of western development in China, use sound investment environment and rich coal resources in Guizhou, take institutional innovation and technical innovation as the lead and the construction of the industrial chain as the center, integrate coal and power generation, extend the industrial chain to coal chemicals and improve the comprehensive benefits of project development to the maximum. Well-developed coal chemical and coal liquefaction technologies in Yankuang Group will be used to gradually establish coal chemical production bases in Guizhou.