China’s Sinopec completes successful trial of crude to olefin technology – Reuters

China’s Sinopec completes successful trial of crude to olefin technology – Reuters

SINGAPORE, Nov 17 (Reuters) - China's Sinopec Corp said on Wednesday it completed a successful trial processing crude oil directly into olefin, making the top Asian refiner one of the world's few companies that have applied the technology at an industrial scale.

With a yield of close to 50%, the manufacturing process cuts significantly production cost as well as carbon dioxide emission, compared with the traditional approach of refining crude into intermediate fuels which are further processed into olefin, Sinopec said.

Olefin - mainly ethylene and propylene - is the key building block for making petrochemicals such as plastics and synthetic fibre.