On July 27, Zhongjing Petrochemical's world-leading alkane integration production base, located in the Jiangyin Port Economic Zone, was officially completed and put into operation. This marks a key step in China’s petrochemical industry toward large-scale, intensive, and green development. With the highest single-factory production capacity in the world, it reshapes the global competitive landscape of the alkane industry.
With the full-capacity production of Phase II—1 million tons of propylene and 1.5 million tons of high-performance polypropylene annually—Zhongjing Petrochemical now boasts the world’s largest alkane integration capacity, totaling 2.8 million tons of propylene and 3.8 million tons of polypropylene per year.
This project, with a total investment of 30 billion yuan and an annual output value of 60 billion yuan, is expected to drive over 50 billion yuan in value across the upstream and downstream industrial chain. Both the scale of individual units and total factory output rank first globally. More than just a factory, it stands as a national emblem of China’s independent innovation in the high-end petrochemical industry.
The localization rate of the project’s equipment reached an impressive 99.5%, achieving dozens of global and national firsts in key equipment. It has broken foreign monopolies and pushed China’s smart chemical equipment manufacturing onto the international stage—a true milestone achievement.
Zhongjing Petrochemical has achieved records in 10 global first-of-its-kind pieces of equipment and 8 national firsts, including the world’s largest propane dehydrogenation (PDH) unit, the world’s largest copolymer polypropylene unit, the highest annual output of BDO (a crucial organic and fine chemical material), and the largest BOPP (biaxially oriented polypropylene film) production line in the world.
Zhongjing Petrochemical is the only company in the world with a complete BOPP industrial chain. As a dual benchmark in China’s Top 500 Enterprises and Top 500 Manufacturing Companies, Zhongjing bases its strategy on “extending, supplementing, and strengthening the chain” to build a complete value chain from propane to polypropylene.
In its early stages, the company focused on BOPP film production, widely used in packaging for clothing, food, and more. However, the polypropylene raw materials required for film production were heavily dependent on imports. Facing this challenge, Zhongjing boldly advanced upstream, establishing self-sufficient production of propane dehydrogenation and polypropylene materials, thereby unlocking a critical segment of the value chain.
Currently, Zhongjing operates a complete supply chain starting with its own liquid chemical terminal. It sources propane and butane from the Middle East and North America, processes them as liquefied petroleum gas or chemical feedstock, and converts them through a series of steps into polypropylene and high-end BOPP film products, which are exported worldwide.
