Development of chemical industry in China: Current situation and problems

Dual-line transformation becomes a strategic trend

Digital transformation and low-carbon transformation are the two major macro strategic issues that industries will face in the coming decades. The chemical industry has two attributes of technology intensive and high energy consumption and high emission. Digital transformation and low-carbon transformation are of great significance to the chemical industry.

From the perspective of low-carbon transition, the carbon emissions of the chemical industry are on the rise with the rapid growth of production capacity. In 2020, the total energy consumption of China's petrochemical and chemical industry will reach 6.85×108t of standard coal, an increase of 59.7% compared with 2010, and the total carbon emissions will reach 1.378 billion tons, second only to the metallurgical industry in industrial carbon emissions.

On the one hand, the demand for chemicals and new materials continues to grow rapidly, driving the rapid growth of production capacity. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, China will still have a number of refining and chemical integration projects completed and put into operation, and it is expected that in 2025, the total ethylene production capacity will break through 5000×104t/a, becoming the world's first petrochemical country. On the other hand, in order to achieve China's commitment to achieve carbon peak by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060, the green and low-carbon development of the industry is an inevitable choice.

From the perspective of digital transformation, the "Process industry digital transformation Market Survey" report pointed out that in the past decade, the digital construction of the domestic process industry has developed rapidly, and by 2020, only less than 10% of the process enterprises in the country have not involved in the topic of digital and intelligent manufacturing, and nearly 90% of the enterprises have carried out digital-related work. Nearly half of them have made digital transformation one of their major strategies.

At present, the focus of digital systematic construction of domestic chemical industry is to promote the comprehensive integration and deepening application of enterprise production management system and operation management system. In the aspect of vertical integration, the effective integration of management system and control system and the integration and sharing of data information are realized. In terms of production process management, improve the efficiency of process control system, and the application of APC technology in chemical industry to achieve smooth operation of enterprise production process and improve energy utilization efficiency; At the level of production and operation, improve the application penetration rate, coverage and application depth of production execution system (MES). In terms of horizontal integration, it promotes the data connectivity of raw material procurement, production and manufacturing process, logistics and warehousing, and realizes the goals of product traceability, manufacturing process monitoring, and real-time benefit calculation.