Shandong Dongming Petrochemical Group is one of China's top 500 enterprises. Against the backdrop of new energy disrupting the traditional refining and chemical market, the company adheres to technological innovation to drive industrial transformation and upgrading. Focusing on olefins as a breakthrough direction, it develops high-end chemicals and actively seeks to transition from a "refining-oriented" to a "chemical-oriented" business model.

In the workshop of the 5,000-ton EPOE pilot project at Shandong Dongming Petrochemical Group in Heze City, the first batch of pilot products is being successfully produced. These small, transparent EPOE pellets are derived from black crude oil. Their successful production will promote the localization of polyolefin materials.

Dajian, the honorary president of Shandong High-end Chemical Research Institute, told reporters that EPOE, also known as ethylene polyolefin elastomer, is a kind of high-end chemical new material that can be used in photovoltaic, automotive, aerospace, wire and cable, biomedicine and other fields. The technology is completely with independent intellectual property rights. Compared with the previously foreign-dominated polyolefin elastomer materials, it performs excellently in mechanics, anti-UV, low-temperature toughness and aging resistance, and its application range is wider.

Dongming Petrochemical Group is currently the largest local refining enterprise in Shandong and even in China, processing about 10.5 million tons of crude oil annually, with an annual sales revenue of over 100 billion yuan. However, with the development and popularization of new energy sources in recent years, the overall production capacity of the national refined oil market has exceeded demand. The survival space for traditional refining is becoming smaller and smaller, making transformation an inevitable choice. But a drop of crude oil can be used to derive thousands of chemical raw materials and products in two major categories: olefins and aromatics. What is the focus for high-end chemical industry? Dongming Petrochemical possesses a technology that can directly convert crude oil into ethylene and propylene, which gives the company a sense of direction.

In this regard, Miao Zhenqi, Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Shandong Dongming Petrochemical Group, stated that after considering market demand, industry competition, and the company's advantages in upstream raw material reserves and ethylene-propylene products, among other aspects, the decision was made to pursue olefins as the development direction following thorough analysis. This approach allows for differentiated competition with petrochemical enterprises that adopt the aromatics-based technical route for textile production, both in terms of technology and downstream products.

To this end, Dongming Petrochemical invested funds, equipment, and technical personnel, and collaborated with Zhongke Kele Company, which has technology authorization from the University of Science and Technology of China, to build the world's first pilot plant with an annual production capacity of 5,000 tons of EPOE in less than ten months.

Shandong Zhongke Kole New Materials Company's technical director, Cheng Yuwen, told reporters that the biggest advantage of the EPOE process is that it uses only ethylene as a single raw material. This innovation significantly simplifies the production process. Compared to foreign technologies, it eliminates the need for high-cost imported high-carbon alpha olefins as the main raw material and avoids the construction of additional supporting facilities, greatly reducing production costs and operational risks of the equipment.

In recent years, China's import volume of polyolefins has grown at an annual rate of over 25%. Dongming Petrochemical's pilot project for the annual production of 5,000 tons of EPOE has successfully been industrialized, achieving import substitution for foreign polyolefin raw materials and creating a complete industrial chain of "crude oil - ethylene - EPOE high-end polyolefins" for the enterprise. Currently, a project for the annual production of 300,000 tons of EPOE is under construction, and it is expected to meet 30% of the domestic market demand upon production next year, potentially reducing foreign exchange expenditure by about 4.5 billion yuan annually for China.

Ding Shubing, Vice President of Shandong Dongming Petrochemical Group, stated, "To transform current market demands into our market share, we need to break through technological bottlenecks with innovation, fill the gaps in the domestic market, improve our product quality, and reduce production costs. Only by doing so can we truly capture the market."