建设资源节约型环境友好型的中国炼油工业——访姚国欣、毛加祥、李志强、杨上明、王湛

Building a resource efficient and environmentally friendly oil refining industry in China—— Interview with Yao Guoxin, Mao Jiaxiang, Li Zhiqiang, Yang Shangming and Wang Zhan

为满足经济发展对油品需求的不断增长,推动能源、经济、环境的协调发展,“十一五”期间,我国炼油工业将在进一步扩大规模的同时,努力增加清洁油品产量,不断提高加工深度,积极适应重质含硫原油加工,进一步增加轻质油品收率。针对如何实现这些目标,如何应对原油重质化、油品清洁化以及汽柴油消费结构矛盾等带来的挑战,如何建设资源节约型、环境友好型的中国炼油工业等问题,本刊记者走访了几位业内专家,请他们发表了自己的观点和看法。

To meet the increasing need for oil products for economic development and to promote coordinated development of energy, the economy and the environment during 11th Five-Year Plan period, China will further expand the scale of its oil refining industry, strive to boost the output of clean oil products, continually improve processing, actively adapt to processing more high-sulfur heavy crude oil, and further increase the share of light oil products. How to achieve these objectives? How to build a resource efficient and environmentally friendly oil refining industry in China? Our reporter canvassed the opinions of a number of experts in the industry on these issues, including Yao Guoxin (President of the former Sinopec Information Research Institute), Mao Jiaxiang (Vice-president of the Economics & Development Research Institute of SINOPEC), Li Zhiqiang (China's Master Engineering Designer and chief engineer at the Sinopec Beijing Design Institute), Yang Shangming (deputy director of the petrochemical and textile business department of China International Engineering Consulting Corporation), and Wang Zhan (deputy chief engineer at the PetroChina Planning & Engineering Institute). Here they are: Deterioration in the quality of crude oil, reflected in its increasing density, has become a global trend. In the past two years, light crude oil made up only 30% of total world crude oil output, while medium and heavy oil made up 56% and 14% respectively. In 2006, high-sulfur heavy oil accounted for around 1/3rd of China's total crude oil imports, and the share is increasing, posing a great challenge to China's oil refining industry. In order to adapt to the trend toward high-sulfur heavy crude oil, a significant part of China's oil refineries need to be rebuilt, and that will subject them to increased investment and cost pressure. But some flexibility should be allowed in the design of refineries for heavy oil processing. The selection of facility structure and processing flow must be based on full consideration of market, product and return on investment. In the trend toward clean fuel, oil products in developed countries have gone from low sulfur content to super-low sulfur content. It is estimated that super-low sulfur gas (sulfur content less than 50ppm) will make up 80% of gas consumption worldwide in 2010, while super-low sulfur diesel fuel will account for 45% of diesel fuel consumption. China has been relatively slow to move in this direction, especially in the use of clean diesel fuel. It is suggested that US and Japanese practices be adopted in the policy treatment of different kinds of diesel oil to facilitate cleaning it. Government can use tax incentives to encourage production of clean oil products. How much gas and diesel fuel each oil refinery produces should depend on such factors as market demand, investment, stable operations, other product markets, and economic efficiency of the entire facility. All but the first of these factors are fundamental to the operation of an oil refinery. Meanwhile the oil products market is gradually becoming more international; so, China can export an appropriate portion of redundant oil while importing diesel oil to make up for the diesel fuel shortage in China. In the high oil price environment, developing diesel oil vehicles can be an important way to better utilize limited petroleum resources, but this involves more than one industry, such as automotive and oil refining, as well as environmental protection requirements and overall planning. Basically, the development of China's oil refining industry depends on the ability to obtain petroleum resources; so, industry construction activity will focus first on the location of crude oil supply channels.