China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), China’s largest offshore oil producer has selected Axens (Rueil-Malmaison, France) to provide its ParamaX™ aromatics production technologies for a new 12 million ton per year (tpy) oil refinery at Huizhou in Guangdong Province. This will be the largest single-plant refinery in China with a total investment of around CNY 20 billion and is targeted for completion by 2008.

The complex will employ ParamaX technologies (TransPlus, Eluxyl® and XyMax), licensed from Axens, to produce nearly 1.2 million tons per year (tpy) of high purity aromatics components: 840,000 tpy of paraxylene, 250,000 tpy of benzene, and 80,000 tpy of orthoxylene.

ParamaX designates a suite of technologies for the production of benzene and paraxylene from naphtha. Axens and ExxonMobil have entered into an Alliance to provide paraxylene production technologies for grassroots paraxylene complexes around the world.

Paraxylene is the principal feedstock in the polyester production chain; polyester is used in the fiber and resin industries to make a large array of diversified products. Benzene is the starting block of a large set of polymeric materials such as nylon fibers, polystyrene for plastic packaging, polycarbonates for impact resistant glass substitutes and compact disks. Orthoxylene is a component for making plasticizers and for resins in the paints, coating and auto parts industries. The demand growth rates for these building block components are expected to be sustained by the growth in Asian economies.

Eluxyl and ParamaX are trademarks of Axens; XyMax and TransPlus are proprietary process names for certain Exxon Mobil Corporation technologies.

CNOOC
China National Offshore Oil Corporation, headquartered in Beijing, is a state-owned oil company incorporated in 1982. With fast and quality growth over the past 20 years, CNOOC has developed into an integrated energy company along a complete value chain with oil and gas exploration and development as its core business