Food safety centre launched 

The long-proposed National Food Safety Risk Assessment Centre (see  Chemistry World  China, 2011, Apr–Jun, p 8) was formally launched on 13 October. The centre is headed by vice health minister Chen Xiaohong and there will be 400 scientists and staff working in the centre. 

At the launching ceremony, Health Minister Chen Zhu charged the centre with performing extensive food safety risk monitoring, evaluation and warning, as well as research into assessment methodologies, training, and risk communication. The minister hopes that the centre will play an important role in food policy making. 

Meanwhile, by the end of September, according to the National Food Safety Office, 980 people have been detained or arrested regarding the scandal of making, selling and distributing toxic steroids for increasing the muscle percentage of livestock. In addition, the police and food safety authorities have cracked down 1200 cases of food safety, after screening 6.69 million food producers and dealers nationwide since April. 

Environmental guidelines released 

On 20 October, the State Council, released Guiding Principles to Strengthen Key Issues in Environmental Protection, the most comprehensive environmental policy issued in recent years. While keeping the existing total emission control for pollutants like nitrogen and ammonia, the document also proposes increasing the monitoring on the paper-making, cement and chemical industries – tightening controls on their emission of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. 

By 2015, energy consumption of per 10 thousand yuan (US$1,587) GDP (gross domestic product) should be reduced to 0.869 tonne of standard coal, a 16 per cent reduction on the figures from 2000, according to the document. 

The chemical industries should be strategically managed to reduce pressure on the environment, it says. Economic policies will be further adopted to promote environmental protection and the government is studying the imposition environmental protection tax. The principles also call for better industrial design of eco-friendly products. 

Methanol futures launched in China 

China introduced the world’s first futures product of methanol on 28 October in Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange. Methanol, which in China is mainly produced from coal, is a main industrial material used to produce olefin. In some northern provinces of China, gasoline mingled with methanol is also used to fuel automobiles. However, the wide adoption of methanol as an auto fuel is hampered by its extremely fluctuating price. Methanol can be three times more expensive in summer than in winter, when the agrochemical demands on methanol decline.  

Methanol futures, which have been proposed and studied for many years, will allow customers to buy methanol produced in the future, so that manufacturers can store methanol in the lower season, which will reduce the price change. On the first day of trading trading day, the price product ended 2.92 per cent up, indicating a stable market psychology. Experts say that the introduction of methanol futures will also help China’s pricing power internationally as well as domestically. 

Power-chemical plant to be born

The world’s first poly-generation facility for power and hydrocarbon streams, is to be launched in Taiyuan, capital city of northern Chinese province of Shanxi. On 23 September, Shanxi Gemeng International Energy (GMIE) signed a deal with the US-based environmental engineering firm LP Amina to adopt the latter’s Integrated Fractionation Conventional Generation (IFCG) technology in GMIE’s thermal power plant. IFCG can produce certain chemical intermediates during coal-based power generation, while reducing production costs and emissions compared to the conventional petroleum process, a heavily energy-consuming raw chemical material. 

The first such unit will be installed at GMIE’s facility in Shanxi and is scheduled to be fully operational in the first half of 2012. It will co-produce electric power and high value hydrocarbon products. According to LP Amina, the technology reduces greenhouse gas emissions by more than 25 per cent compared to the conventional process. 

Due to China’s huge reliance on coal-based thermal power, the IFCG technology, if widely adopted, would create huge profits while massively reducing emissions, LP Amina says. 

Fires strike Shanghai chemical industry 

On 23 September, Gaoqiao Petrochemical’s refinery in Shanghai, a branch of Sinopec, burst into flames. Although the fire was controlled in three hours without injury or environmental pollution, the damage caused has led to a shutdown of the firm’s coke production facilities. It is estimated that the one-month shutdown could cause up to a total loss of 300 million yuan (US$ 47.6 million). The fire was found to be caused by the aging facilities and is the third incident in the past 17 months. Separately, on 10 September, another fire broke out in Shanghai Secco Petrochemical’s ethylene facilities.  

According to the leading Chinese business newspaper, 21st Century Business Herald, Sinopec has reached an agreement with Shanghai municipal government to relocate Gaoqiao Petrochemical, which is only one kilometre from the nearest residential zone. Sinopec will first construct a petrochemical complex with 20 million tonnes of refinery and 1 million tonnes of ethylene production capacity in Shanghai Chemical Industrial Zone, and then relocate Gaoqiao Petrochemical into the new facility. 

Chemicals’ price down 

In October, more than 80 per cent of China’s chemical products suffered a price decrease, with some dropping to the price level of early 2010. According to Chemnet.com, the largest chemical website in China, among the 68 chemical products it monitored in the week of late October, 22 kept a stable price while 27 experienced price cuts, accounting for 38.7 per cent.  

In September and October, the conventional boom season for China’s chemical sector, the price has not increased like previous years. The financial problems of the international market and oversupplies are blamed for keeping the price down. Investors are generally concerned that the world’s economy may be in recession and these worries have led to a reduced market demand in China. 

Despite the situation, the petrochemical sector remains strong in China. According to the official China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation, the country’s petrochemical sector will for the first time in history surpass 1 trillion yuan (US$1,587 billion) to reach 1.09 trillion by the year end, increasing 23 per cent year on year.