China's Hengli Petrochemical plans to start test runs at the first of its two new paraxylene production lines in Dalian, Liaoning province, in March, following the start of its new 20 million mt/year (400,000 b/d) refinery in mid-December 2018, a source close to the company said Wednesday.
Both lines have a production capacity of 2.25 million mt/year. The plan is for the second line to start about two months after the first line has started, the source said.
Previously, the first PX plant was planned to start in November last year, in line with plans to conduct trial runs at the refinery in October. Since the start up of the refinery was delayed, so was the start of the PX plant.
Some market sources said Wednesday that it may be difficult to start the new PX plants in the March-May quarter, and are expecting them to only start production sometime in the second half of the year, as delays are the norm for new plants starting off.
Hengli is one of China's, and the world's, largest producer of purified terephthalic acid, with three plants at Dalian totaling 6.6 million mt/year in production capacity. PX is used to produce PTA.
Hengli is likely to start marketing its petrochemical and oil products in the first half of this year, though company officials did not confirm the timeline, S&P Global Platts reported earlier.
