Opportunities and challenges brought by carbon peak and carbon neutralization to petrochemical industry
February 20, 2023
Achieving carbon peak and carbon neutralization is a broad and profound economic and social systemic change, which poses great challenges to the petroleum and chemical industry. This challenge mainly focuses on three aspects:
1. How to meet the growing demand of economic society for petrochemical products while achieving carbon peak and carbon neutralization. At present, the total amount of China's petroleum and chemical industry has ranked the first two in the world, among which the chemical industry has steadily ranked the first in the world. China's sales of chemical products account for 38.7% of the global chemical market, equivalent to the sum of Europe, the United States and Japan. Oil refining, ethylene, paraxylene, methanol and other products accounted for 16.9%, 15.5%, 41.7% and 68.3% of the global production capacity respectively. Although the scale of the chemical industry is huge, there is still a certain gap in meeting the growing demand of China's economic society for petrochemical and chemical products. In the first half of this year, we calculated the carbon emissions of the industry in the past 10 years and also predicted the carbon emissions in the next 15 years. In 2020, the carbon dioxide emissions of the whole industry will be 1.384 billion tons, and the peak carbon emissions of the industry will increase on this basis in the future. Achieving the "double carbon" goal does not require us to slow down development, let alone stop development, but to achieve better, faster and high-quality development under the constraints of carbon reduction and low carbon. How to control the total carbon emissions of the industry and lay the foundation for the future carbon neutralization process while meeting the demand of domestic petrochemical and chemical products is the first great challenge we face. 2. How to maintain and improve the competitiveness of petrochemical enterprises while reducing pollution and carbon. In the international competition, maintaining and improving the competitiveness of China's petrochemical enterprises is one of the core tasks. In recent years, petrochemical enterprises have accelerated the adjustment of process and product structure, increased investment in scientific and technological research and development, accelerated the digital and intelligent transformation, and implemented the green sustainable development strategy, and their core competitiveness has been significantly improved. China's petrochemical enterprises are not only facing the constraints of reaching the carbon peak goal, but also facing the pressure to enter the carbon neutralization stage as soon as possible. Under such a huge new situation, how to integrate the "double carbon" strategy with the improvement of enterprise competitiveness, maintain the same direction, digest the cost of carbon reduction, and even become the profit point of enterprises is another huge challenge to the petrochemical industry. 3. How to deal with the relationship between industrial stock and increment, and achieve the goal of becoming a petrochemical power. China's energy structure and petrochemical industry structure and technical characteristics determine its large energy consumption and emissions. In 2020, the total energy consumption of the whole industry was 685 million tons of standard coal, ranking fourth in the industrial sector. There are about 2300 enterprises that consume more than 10000 tons of standard coal, and have formed a large number of storage devices and assets with high energy consumption and high carbon emissions. These enterprises have supported China's petrochemical industry and made China a veritable petrochemical power. In the context of "double carbon", the stock with high carbon emissions will inevitably accelerate the depreciation, but it still needs to play a role in creating wealth and providing financial flow for enterprise survival and low-carbon transformation in a certain period of time. If the "one-size-fits-all" policy is adopted to force its withdrawal at any cost or to put forward harsh conditions, it will cause huge economic losses and disrupt the stability and normal operation of the industrial chain. How to choose the appropriate low-carbon transformation direction for enterprises in the future, how to focus on increasing investment in technology research and development, and how to establish supporting industrial policies and technical standards for management departments are all new topics that must be faced before us.
Historical opportunities brought by peak carbon neutralization to petroleum and chemical industry Carbon peak and carbon neutralization bring great challenges to the petrochemical industry, but also historic opportunities. In this process, there will be a group of enterprises "dying under the carbon" and a group of enterprises "living on the carbon". The fundamental difference between "dying under the carbon" and "living on the carbon" is whether you can find the technology, process and product of carbon dioxide resource utilization. 1. Carbon peak and carbon neutralization will help China's petrochemical industry build a higher level of dynamic balance between supply and demand. At present, China's economy has entered a new stage of high-quality development, and is building a new development pattern with domestic big cycle as the main body and domestic and international double cycles promoting each other. Under the background of carbon peak and carbon neutralization, the demand side and supply side of the petrochemical industry will undergo profound changes. On the demand side, the explosive growth of new energy industries represented by photovoltaic, wind power and power batteries has brought a large amount of incremental demand for chemicals, including traditional chemical products and new chemical materials. On the supply side, product route adjustment and quality upgrading will provide more, better and low-carbon chemical products to the society. Carbon peak and carbon neutralization will bring new demand and guide new supply. The petrochemical industry will take this opportunity to build a new balance between supply and demand of a higher level. 2. Carbon peak and carbon neutralization will promote the technological revolution and industrial upgrading of China's petrochemical industry. The chemical industry believes that carbon dioxide is not the source of all evil, but is an effective resource that can be used. It is also impossible for humans to live in a carbon-free world. At present, the world's chemical power and famous multinational companies are making great efforts to study the technology of carbon dioxide resource utilization. "Technology is the king" has been fully reflected in this process. Whoever leads in technology will gain advantages in the future competition. In the coming period, key common technologies such as new catalytic technology, process intensification technology, high-efficiency separation technology, advanced control and information technology, as well as carbon capture and storage technology, clean and efficient utilization technology of coal, new energy-saving technology, renewable energy and hydrogen energy technology, energy storage and smart grid technology, high-end functions and smart materials, biodegradable plastic technology The recycling technology of waste chemicals and other key fields will receive further attention and investment in research and development, and will certainly form a new situation of multi-point breakthrough, multi-party success, and comprehensive upgrading of scientific and technological innovation in the petrochemical industry. In the process of industrial technological revolution and industrial upgrading, a number of global leading petrochemical enterprises will grow up. 3. Carbon peak and carbon neutralization will promote the integrated development of petrochemical industry and other industries. In recent years, China's industrial integration has deepened, providing an important growth point for building a modern industrial system and cultivating and strengthening new drivers of economic development. Under the new situation of carbon peak and carbon neutrality, China's industrial production will certainly break the status quo of isolation marked by production technology and process, and explore a new mode of coupling development with comprehensive utilization of resources as the link, interconnection, symbiosis and win-win. For example, traditional energy enterprises can develop in a coupling way with renewable energy enterprises to achieve zero-carbon emissions to produce green hydrogen by replacing part or all of fossil energy with renewable energy; The petrochemical industry can be coupled with the metallurgical industry to reduce or replace the production of synthetic gas by using steel tail gas as chemical raw material and realize low carbon emissions; The power industry can be developed in a coupling way with the petrochemical industry, and the capacity of the petrochemical industry can be used to solve the problem of space-time mismatch in the development of photovoltaic and wind power, so as to realize the contradiction of stable production with peak shift; The power industry can also be developed in a coupling way with the nitrogen fertilizer industry. Synthetic ammonia can be used to replace or reduce the consumption of raw coal to achieve low-carbon or carbon-free emissions. The new model of coupling development of comprehensive utilization of resources, pollution reduction and emission reduction is creating a new situation of carbon-neutral development of the entire industrial carbon peak. In the future, the new model of multi-industry coupling development has a promising prospect and huge potential.
