The world's largest single coal glycol project speed up: China's Xinjiang Hengyi Turpan 2.4 million tons project into the civil construction period.

Basic Information and Construction Progress of 1. Project

in the coal-based new materials recycling industrial park in Turpan Economic Development Zone, Xinjiang, China, Hengyi Energy Technology (Turpan) Co., Ltd.'s 2.4 million-ton/year high-quality fiber coal-to-ethylene glycol project is under civil construction. The project is invested by a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hengyi Petrochemical, with a total investment of 25.7 billion yuan. It is the world's largest coal-to-ethylene glycol project under construction, and it is also the core project of the first phase of the local 100 billion-level coal chemical spinning new material integration project. The project will start on March 20, 2026, and is planned to be put into trial production in 2028. Relying on lignite resources in Aidinghu mining area, the project will produce polyester-grade ethylene glycol, supporting CCS carbon capture and green electricity coupling scheme, and by-product DMC and coal-based ethanol.

The key nodes of the project are clear: the environmental assessment will be approved in December 2025, the cavitating process package will be reviewed and landed in April 2026, large-scale civil construction will be started in August, and the air separation unit will be started in September. At this stage, multi-unit simultaneous construction of ground management, gasification, purification, power, etc. is carried out. About 1200 construction personnel and 50 construction machines are working in parallel on site. The target is that all the foundations will be out of the ground by the end of the year. The extreme high temperature in the local summer brings challenges to the construction, and the project adopts staggered construction and cooling measures to ensure the progress. Hengyi downstream polyester plate annual ethylene glycol consumption of more than 4 million tons, the project will significantly improve the self-sufficiency rate of raw materials, reduce the enterprise's dependence on overseas oil-based ethylene glycol procurement.

2. Customized Process Solutions and Global Supply Chain Impact

in view of the characteristics of high ash content, low calorific value and easy slagging of Turpan lignite in China, the project is equipped with 4 sets of 3000-ton/Japan Space Flight Mai gasifier and adopts the "four-open and unprepared" mode. The whole process adopts oxalate method route, and sets up 4 600000-ton/year production lines, with isothermal converter and 3 sets of single oxygen production 105000Nm & sup3;/h air separation unit./h, it is different from the coal-based ethylene glycol plant in mainland China, which relies on high-quality raw coal. The low-carbon supporting design also provides compliance advantages for the export of products to the Central Asian market.

From the perspective of overseas chemical trade and supply chain, the project brings three changes. First, the 2.4 million-ton production capacity is a heavyweight increment, which will increase the overall supply ratio of China's coal-based ethylene glycol, compete with the supply of imported ethylene glycol from East China ports, and suppress the price increase of ethylene glycol in the medium and long term. Second, the location advantage reconstructs the circulation channel: in addition to supplying Hengyi's own polyester factory, the products can cover the northwest market of China and export to Central Asia, changing the pattern of ethylene glycol trade mainly distributed in East China's ports. Third, the cost game point of view is prominent: local lignite has the advantage of raw material cost, but the stable supply of lignite, energy consumption, carbon cost and long-distance freight, will directly determine the long-term competitiveness of this device. In the long run, the project is the core step for Hengyi to build an integrated layout of "oil, coal and cloth". The total investment in the long-term plan is 150 billion yuan to build a whole industrial chain of coal-ethylene glycol-polyester new materials and drive the development of regional supporting industries.