OREANDA-NEWS. December 23, 2011. PetroChina Ningxia Petrochemical in northwest China started production at its 5m tonne/year refinery on 12 December, after expansion, and its major units are running normally, a company source said on 22 December.

The company started up a 5m tonne/year crude distillate unit (CDU) on 12 December and a 900,000 tonne/year continuous reformer on 13 December, the source said. Then it began operation of a 2.6m tonne/year fluid catalytic cracker, started to supply LPG on 18 December and then other products including gasoline and gasoil on 19 December, according to the source.

Ningxia Petrochemical is likely to bring all its units online before the end of December, the source said.

The throughput of the CDU has averaged 9,000-10,000 tonnes a day so far, the source said. The monthly throughput is likely to climb to about 350,000 tonnes after all the units come on stream, the source said.

In addition to the above-mentioned units, Ningxia Petrochemical has also built a 1.6m tonne/year gasoil hydrogenation unit, a 400,000 tonne/year gas fractionation unit and some other units under its expansion project.