On the edge of the Maowusu Desert in Wushen Banner, Ordos, the Tuke Industrial Project Area of Sulige Economic Development Zone has recently experienced a long lost busyness. On August 4, 2026, a public announcement from the local government disrupted the tranquility of the grassland. This is not an ordinary notice, but a heavy blow thrown by PetroChina - the 1 million tons/year ethane light hydrocarbon to ethylene project of Hohhot Petrochemical Company has officially launched a social stability risk assessment. This investment of up to 19.856 billion yuan indicates that this land adjacent to the largest integrated gas field in China is about to undergo an industrial transformation from "digging and selling gas" to "using gas for material production".

Intensify the layout in the northwest

As a key project of PetroChina in the northwest region, the implementation of this project has undergone meticulous preparation. The project is located in Wushen Banner, Ordos City, covering an area of approximately 4050 acres with a construction period of 24 months. It is planned to start construction in June 2027 and be completed and put into operation in June 2029. China Huanqiu Engineering Beijing Branch has undertaken the preliminary overall design, and the technical solution is mature and reliable. At present, the bidding for energy-saving assessment services for the project has been launched, and various compliance assessments are being vigorously promoted, paving the way for subsequent EPC bidding and civil engineering installation. This is not only the start of a project, but also a key landing point for PetroChina to implement the "suitable for olefins" strategy and optimize the structure of the refining industry.

The road to breaking through the old factory

For Hohhot Petrochemical, this is a structural breakthrough that concerns survival. In recent years, the growth rate of domestic refined oil consumption has slowed down, and the refining industry has entered a low profit cycle. As a typical urban refinery, Hohhot Petrochemical is facing multiple pressures such as land restrictions and stricter environmental protection. Relying solely on refining and capacity expansion has no way out. The horn of transformation was already sounded as early as 2022, when Hu Petrochemical acquired the equity of Tianye Chemical Industry Control, entered the field of formaldehyde new materials, and successfully achieved a turnaround in 2023. The launch of the million ton ethylene project is aimed at completely breaking free from the shackles of a single product and building a new industrial pattern of oil refining, new materials, and fine chemicals, greatly enhancing the enterprise's risk resilience.

New Chapter of Green Chemical Industry

Entering the project planning diagram, a set of efficient and low-carbon chemical systems leaps onto the paper. Unlike traditional naphtha cracking, this project adopts ethane light hydrocarbon to ethylene technology, which has significant advantages such as high yield, low energy consumption, and low carbon emissions, and is highly in line with the industry's trend of lightweight development. Relying on the resource endowment adjacent to the Sulige gas field, the project will achieve on-site conversion of raw materials, significantly reducing logistics costs. keywords:New energy information network

After completion, the factory area will cover multiple sets of equipment such as HDPE, FDPE, PP, and be equipped with railway dedicated lines. This will not only fill the gap in high-end polyolefin production capacity in Inner Mongolia, reduce the dependence on imported related products, but also drive the coordinated development of local upstream and downstream industries such as warehousing and logistics, equipment manufacturing, etc., and promote the regional economy to move from primary resource output to a deep-water area of high value-added manufacturing.Editor/Yang Meiling