China to strictly control new capacity of ammonium phosphate and yellow phosphorus

On April 7, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, in association with other administrations, issued a joint document, entitled Promotion of High-Quality Development of Petroleum and Chemical industries in the 14th Five-Year Plan period. 

The document lists a series of objectives of development up to 2025, including the goal of R & D spending of Chinese petroleum and chemical enterprises to reach 1.5% of business incomes; centralization of major chemical productions and capacity utilization rate to reach 80% or above; actually secured ethylene volume to increase significantly, and the secured volume of new chemical materials to reached 75% or above; complete the relocation of hazardous chemical production in populated zones, and some 70 competitive chemical industrial parks are to be built. By 2025, the output value of the chemical industrial parks is expected to take up 70% or above of the total industry output value; the major equipment automation rate in the petrochemical and coal-based chemical industries to reach 95% or above; the per-unit energy consumption of major productions and carbon emissions to drop significantly; and the total emissions of volatile organic compounds to reach 10% lower than that of the 13th Five-Year Plan period. 

Of the above, the measures of control which involve the agrochemical industry are as follows:

●To increase the proportion of green products in fertilizers, tires, coatings, dyes, adhesives; to encourage enterprises to improve quality and cultivate brands.

●To strictly control new capacity of oil refining, ammonium phosphate, calcium carbide, and yellow phosphorus industries; to prohibit the new building of mercury-based (poly) vinyl chloride capacity; to speed up the process of phaseout of inefficient and outdated capacity.

●To build an industrial internet-based industry chain monitor and precise service system covering fertilizer and tire-oriented products which are related to people’s livelihoods and safety.

●To promote coupling development of the petrochemical industry with building materials, metallurgy, energy conservation and pollution control, so as to increase the utilization of by-product gypsums, such as phosphogypsum, titanium gypsum, fluorine gypsum, desulfurization-based gypsum, as well as the solid wastes, such as carbide slag, alkali slag and fly ash; to encourage enterprises to strengthen the resource utilization or nuisance-free disposal of phosphorus and potassium-associated resources, industrial waste salt, mine tailings, yellow phosphorus tail gas, calcium carbide furnace gas and refinery balance exhaust.

●In accordance with the market-oriented operation principle, to promote international cooperation in development of potash resource; to strengthen exploration of domestic potash resources and promote development of high-efficient mining and dressing processes for medium and low-grade phosphate rocks, as well as efficient utilization techniques for development of non-water-soluble potash resources; to take various measures to promote phosphogypsum reduction, recycling and nuisance-free disposal so that the phosphorus chemical industry can develop toward the “slag treatment-based production” objective; to secure fertilizer production factors; to improve production centralization; to increase the capacity utilization rate of prime enterprises to ensure stable supplies of fertilizers.