Sinopec remains committed to its goal of building a world-class, high-tech, and integrated petrochemical base. Following development strategies that prioritize both basic and advanced products, as well as chemical engineering and materials, the Company has advanced the industrialization of chemical material technologies such as synthetic resin, synthetic rubber, and synthetic fiber. It has also increased R&D investment in new materials, including high-end polyolefin, specialty rubber, and 48k large-tow carbon fiber (those with more than 48,000 carbon fibers per bundle), while focusing on the development of high-end chemical materials such as polyolefin-based elastomer (POE), metallocene polyethylene/polypropylene, functionalized solution-polymerized styrene-butadiene rubber, polyimide, and and high-performance membrane materials. By developing new quality productive forces adapted to local conditions, Sinopec has further strengthened the core competitiveness of its chemical products and laid a solid foundation in materials for building China into a global manufacturing powerhouse.

Key developments in modern chemical engineering sector

We improved the performance of specialized products for electro-membranes, terpolymer polypropylene products, and specialized polyethylene materials used in lithium battery separators. We also developed metallocene polyethylene, successfully pioneered the production technology for ultra-pure polypropylene resin for electro-membranes, and achieved mass production of iron-catalyzed polybutadiene rubber.

We applied carbon fiber materials to support lightweight automotive applications and scheduled the production of low-odor, low-volatile organic compound (VOC) automotive materials on both the polypropylene loop reactor and gas-phase polypropylene production units, promoting the application of foamed polypropylene materials in automotive components. In addition, we developed new POE materials for automotive modification through pilot-scale testing on the POE production unit.

We successfully commissioned China's first 12,000-metric-ton-per-year EVOH resin industrial demonstration plant in a single attempt, and applied the 150,000-metric-ton-per-year epoxypropane production technology based on the cumene hydroperoxide (CHP) process in a production facility. We also launched the world's first cyclohexanone production plant using cyclohexene esterification hydrogenation technology, and successfully put into operation China's first pilot-scale plant for propylene- based elastomers (PBE).

We completed and brought into operation Sinopec Catalyst's Tianjin New Materials Production Base and the PBST industrial demonstration facility in Hainan. We also achieved mechanical completion for Hunan Petrochemical's 50,000-Metric-Ton-per-Year Environmentally Friendly Epichlorohydrin Project, among others. Furthermore, several projects, including Zhongke Refinery & Petrochemical's Ethylene-Vinyl Acetate (EVA) No. 2 Project and Hunan Petrochemical's High-Performance Epoxy Resin Project, are currently under construction.