Maoming, a petrochemical city in South China's Guangdong province, has been transforming its development patterns and adjusting its economic structures in recent years in order to improve its ecological environment.

The city had excellent or good air quality on 98.9 percent of days in 2020, topping the province and 6.3 percentage points higher than the previous year. Its surface water environmental pollution index saw a year-on-year decline of 47.14 percent in 2020.

Sinopec Maoming Petrochemical Company, the first oil refining enterprise independently built by China in 1955, recently started its fourth transformation.

Sinopec Maoming boasts a green production environment. [Photo/WeChat account: maofabu]

The world's largest - and the nation's first - slurry bed residue hydrogenation unit, with a capacity of 2.6 million metric tons per year, was put into use at Sinopec Maoming on Dec 31, 2020. The unit uses the EST (Eni Slurry Technology) developed by Italian energy firm Eni, which can convert refinery residues, heavy oils and bitumen into high-quality light products, thus eliminating any waste.

This year, the company launched a refining transformation and upgrading and ethylene quality improvement project with an investment of 28.92 billion yuan ($4.45 billion).

Construction of the alkane resources comprehensive utilization project, the largest private industrial project that Maoming has ever introduced, began in March 2020. The project is being built with an investment of 40 billion yuan by Oriental Energy, and will result in a world-class polypropylene production base.

"Developing hydrogen energy is one of the effective ways for China's goals of peaking carbon emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060," said Ji Hongbing, vice president of Guangdong University of Petrochemical Technology and dean of the Maoming Green Chemical Research Institute.

A group of egrets fly over the water field of the refining area in Sinopec Maoming. [Photo/WeChat account: maofabu]

Construction work on a green chemical and new material middle test base, led by the Maoming Green Chemical Research Institute, began on March 1. A professional middle test base can conduct mature treatment and industrialization tests in order to realize the application and industrialization of scientific and technological breakthroughs.

Maoming is accelerating the formation of a new chemical material innovation chain, which integrates research and development, middle tests, as well as incubation.

With a solid foundation in the petrochemical industry, the city will realize the integrated development of the green chemical industry in the upper, middle and lower streams, as well as the integrated development of production, trade, logistics, and R&D, said Ji.