PRIVATELY controlled Zhejiang Petrochemical Corp. (ZPC), China’s single-largest refiner and petrochemical producer, is exploring new technologies such as direct processing of crude into olefins to cut carbon emissions, a company executive said Wednesday.

Refining and petrochemical manufacturing contributes about 5 percent of China’s total carbon emissions, or about 400-500 million tons, told Liu Minghui, ZPC’s vice president, at a livestreamed oil seminar hosted by Zhejiang’s provincial government in Zhoushan.

ZPC is working with China’s Tsinghua University to develop crude-to-olefin know-how that is expected to reduce carbon footprint by nearly half compared with the traditional process of obtaining feedstock for petrochemicals during the crude refining process, Liu said.

There are no plants in China, as yet, with the technologies needed for production on a commercial scale.

Meantime, the Zhoushan-based company is also advancing plans to capture and utilize CO2, with annual usable volume of around 5.2 million tons, for the production of synthetic gas and acetic acid, the latter used for making paints.

“The company is actively drawing up plans to capture and utilize CO2 and accelerating their executions,” Liu said.

Citing a report from refiner Sinopec Corp., Liu said downstream consumption of refined oil products including diesel, gasoline, kerosene and fuel oil emits one billion tons of CO2 each year.

China last month laid out an action plan aiming to bring its carbon emissions to a peak before 2030, including putting a cap on oil refining capacity and promoting renewables. (SD-Agencies)