China's Zhejiang Rongsheng eyes doubling refinery capacity in 2020
(Reuters) Chinese conglomerate Zhejiang Rongsheng Holding Group plans to double capacity of a joint venture refining project to 800 Mbpd in 2020, two years after the first phase starts up, senior company officials said Thursday.
The project, a venture among private companies led by Rongsheng, is planning to start up the 400 Mbpd first phase in 2018, aiming to meet the group's requirements for petrochemical feedstocks.
"Our aim is to produce petrochemicals, especially aromatics," Bochun Shou, general manager of Rongsheng International Trading Co., told reporters.
Rongsheng currently imports about half of the paraxylene it needs to produce plastics used to make synthetic fibers and bottles.
The company requires about 9 MMtpy of paraxylene for its 13.7 MMtpy capacity of purified terephthalic acid production, Shou said.
The company officially launched a 10,000 sq ft trade office in Singapore overlooking Marina Bay.
"The office will handle external business and it's mainly to purchase feedstocks naphtha and fuel oil," Shou said.
Each month the company buys 250,000 tons of fuel oil and 150,000 tons of naphtha for its plants in China, he said.
The Singapore office now has a staff of five to six, which will be increased to more than 20 next year, Shou said.
Reporting by Florence Tan; Additional reporting by Chen Aizhu and Mark Tay; Editing by Joseph Radford and Tom Hogue
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