China Huadian Intends to Build Coal-to-Aromatics Project in Shaanxi     

China Huadian Engineering Co., Ltd. intends to build a coal-to-aromatics (CTA) project in Shaanxi province and the pre-feasibility study report has been assessed by an expert panel.
   Huadian's CTA project will be located in Yuheng Coal Chemical Park, Yulin, Shaanxi province. Huadian will firstly build a pilot plant with a capacity of 10 000 t/a and then launch a mega project, with a capacity of 3 million t/a coal based methanol and 1 million t/a aromatics by methanol to aromatics route. The mega project is expected to cost RMB28.5 billion.
   Huadian decides to use the Fluidized Bed Methanol to Aromatics (FMTA) technology, which is owned by Tsinghua University. Hualu Engineering Company will participate in the pilot and industrial project as the contractor.
   According to ASIACHEM, in the coal-rich areas like China's western region, the coal-to-aromatics project may be more competitive if they are integrated with coal-to-MEG units in the same site as the backward integrated production can manufacture downstream products such as PTA and PET.
    The MTA developers in China mainly include Tsinghua University and Shanxi Institute of Coal Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ICC-CAS).
    Methanol is oversupply in China now, so it is a key for the coal chemical investors to find a way of converting it into derivatives, like MTA and methanol to olefins.