On October 26, the State Council issued the "Action Plan for Carbon Peak by 2030" (hereinafter referred to as the "Plan"), focusing on the goal of carbon peak by 2030, and making overall arrangements for promoting carbon peak work. On October 24, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the Opinions on the Complete, Accurate and Comprehensive Implementation of the New Development Concept to Do a Good Job of Carbon Peak and Carbon Neutralization. On October 21, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Ecological Environment and other five departments jointly issued the Several Opinions on Promoting Energy Conservation and Carbon Reduction in Key Areas by Strict Energy Efficiency Constraints, and the Action Plan for Promoting Energy Conservation and Carbon Reduction by Strict Energy Efficiency Constraints in Key Petrochemical and Chemical Industries (2021-2025) for the petrochemical and chemical industry. Recently, policies on carbon peak, carbon neutralization, and carbon reduction have emerged frequently, This represents China's firm determination to launch an impact on the "30 · 60 double carbon" target.
"The petrochemical industry is not only a problem maker, but also a problem solver," said Zhao Zhiping, deputy secretary of the Party Committee and deputy secretary general of the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation.
It is difficult to reduce emissions and actively meet the challenge of carbon peak
What does carbon peak and carbon neutral target mean for enterprises? Chao Qingchen, deputy director of the National Climate Center, said that China's economic development model, energy structure, technological path, production and consumption patterns will undergo profound changes under the "double carbon" goal. Enterprises must transform as soon as possible if they want to develop, and there will be huge market opportunities in the process of transformation. In order to achieve the goal of emission reduction, governments and relevant regulatory agencies will introduce policies and measures, which will affect the production and operation of enterprises, especially the enterprises with high emissions and high energy consumption. In the process of low-carbon transformation, enterprises are also faced with the uncertainty brought by technological change. If enterprises master some key core technologies, they can significantly enhance their competitive advantage and improve their leading position in the industry, otherwise they may be eliminated.
In fact, the task of carbon reduction in various industries has become very urgent, and the petroleum and chemical industries are also faced with problems such as difficulty in emission reduction, accounting difficulties, and technical bottlenecks.
According to the statistics of the International Energy Agency, in 2019, the direct emissions of carbon dioxide from the production and use of chemicals and waste treatment were 1.6 billion tons, and the indirect emissions were 600 million tons, accounting for 6% of the total global emissions. Zhang Zhiqiang, director of the Foreign Cooperation and Exchange Department of the National Climate Strategy Center, said: "Globally, the proportion of carbon emissions in the chemical industry is not high, but it is difficult to reduce emissions, because it directly involves basic energy such as coal, oil and natural gas. At the same time, it is also difficult to calculate the carbon emissions generated in the chemical reaction process. Among them, it is difficult to reduce emissions in the coal industry, because China's coal consumption accounts for 58% of energy consumption, and the emission intensity of coal chemical products such as formaldehyde, synthetic ammonia and coal to liquids is high The high carbon emission concentration in the production process is the focus of emission reduction. "
Zhang Zheng, partner of Siemens Ivenda Consulting, said that if we want to achieve the "30 · 60" goal, the four dimensions covering the entire life cycle, namely, carbon source, carbon application, carbon emissions and carbon trading, will face this huge challenge. First, in the dimension of carbon source, coal and power enterprises will face a greater risk of renewable energy compression. The operation of renewable energy is unstable or causes a certain operating risk to the grid. The application of hydrogen energy and energy storage is also less than expected; The second is the dimension of carbon emissions. The application of carbon dioxide capture technology needs to invest a lot of money for research. The key path for the promotion and application of carbon capture in various fields is still in the early stage of development, and there is the possibility that the technology development in the future will be less than expected; Third, the dimension of carbon application. Under the pressure of short-term emission reduction, some high-carbon industries will suffer from capacity compression in the short term, and the carbon price will rise steadily, which will lead to higher operating costs of high-carbon emission enterprises and increased investment in terminal electrification transformation enterprises; The fourth is the carbon trading dimension. The trading mechanism has been initially established and needs to be further systematized, platform-based and market-oriented.

Carbon reduction has potential. Petrochemical industry plays an important role
For the chemical industry, the national policy has brought both carbon reduction challenges and development opportunities. Li Yongliang, deputy director of the Industry Development Department of the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation, pointed out that the future development of the chemical industry must put carbon peak throughout the whole process and all aspects of economic and social development, focus on the implementation of green and low-carbon transformation of energy, energy conservation, carbon reduction and efficiency enhancement, and carbon reduction with the help of circular economy, combine strict control of energy consumption intensity with reasonable control of total amount, promote energy consumption budget, and establish a unified and standardized carbon emission calculation system.
Li Yongliang said that among the ten actions of carbon peak, the petrochemical industry is mainly involved in the green and low-carbon transformation action of energy, the action of energy conservation and carbon reduction, the action of carbon peak in the industrial field, the action of circular economy to help reduce carbon, and the action of green and low-carbon technology innovation. Among them, the action of energy conservation, carbon reduction and efficiency enhancement mentioned that we should strictly control the intensity of energy consumption, reasonably control the total amount of energy, implement energy budget management, and strengthen the energy conservation review of fixed investment projects; The carbon peak action in the industrial field proposes to strictly enforce project access, steadily and orderly develop modern coal chemical industry, promote the lightweight of petrochemical and chemical raw materials, encourage enterprises to save energy, upgrade and transform, promote the clean use of energy and material recycling; Green and low-carbon technological innovation actions include the large-scale use of renewable energy. Energy conservation, hydrogen energy, energy storage, power battery, carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) and other topics are the key directions in the future.
In view of the future development direction of the industry, Zhang Zhiqiang mentioned that the high carbon chemical fuel will certainly not develop for a long time. Next, the petrochemical industry should develop efficient fuel on the one hand, and transform from fuel to material at the same time; On the other hand, we should adopt intelligent technology to recycle energy and materials.
Enterprises should make early layout to seize the commanding height of low-carbon development
In the context of "double carbon", chemical enterprises have also arranged ahead of schedule, occupied the initiative of development, and embarked on the high-quality development path of green and low carbon.
Zhong Rui, deputy general manager of Sinochem Holdings Co., Ltd., said that in order to implement the "double carbon" goal, the company accelerated the transformation of smart refineries, realized the optimization of refinery resource allocation through the Internet of Things, big data, artificial intelligence and other new technologies, as well as the full life cycle management of equipment, energy, production and sales, promoted the refinement of refinery operation and management, and the forewarning of safety and environmental protection, To minimize the operation cost and material consumption cost of the whole plant, maximize the comprehensive value of products, further strengthen the statistics and monitoring of energy consumption of the refinery, implement energy conservation, water conservation, emission reduction and recycling measures, and apply the green and low-carbon concept throughout the whole system and process of production and operation, thus achieving the reduction of energy consumption and carbon emissions of the refinery.
Sinopec Ningbo Zhenhai Refining and Chemical Co., Ltd. accelerated the deployment of hydrogen energy business and built the first hydrogen refueling demonstration station in Ningbo. They actively tracked the development of new technologies, combined with the practical cases of neighboring enterprises and sister enterprises, studied the feasibility of joint venture projects such as coastal photovoltaic belt, offshore wind power generation to produce green hydrogen, and efficient production of agricultural applications, and timely started to study the existing high-concentration CO  storage and transportation technology, providing CO  for oil displacement in close oil fields.
Nest Qingchen said that in the context of global carbon neutrality, enterprises must plan green and low-carbon transformation as early as possible to avoid transformation risks. Enterprises are the main force to implement the goal of carbon peak and carbon neutrality. Policy, technology and capital are three important aspects to achieve transformation. First, the enterprise management should improve its scientific understanding and policy judgment, grasp the transformation opportunity period, grasp the information, and avoid regulatory legal, reputation, financial and other risks. Second, seek new business opportunities through upgrading innovation, green and low-carbon transformation, digital information technology and other technological innovations. Third, establish and improve the relevant systems of enterprises according to the constantly strengthened information disclosure and carbon asset management requirements. Many large international companies have taken action, and some domestic companies have also made a lot of exploration in the development of energy digitalization, networking and intelligence.
Zhou Lubo, vice president and chief technical officer of Asia-Pacific region of Honeywell Specialty Materials and Technology Group, said that for the refining industry, low-carbon development should start with raw materials, which can reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions through the use of renewable resources and recycled materials, and increase the utilization efficiency of raw materials through the deep utilization of crude oil and light hydrocarbonization of petrochemical raw materials. At the same time, we should attach importance to the combination of molecular management technology to improve the conversion rate of hydrocarbons and the application of green hydrogen, which can open up a low-carbon development path for the green development of refining and coal chemical industry.
According to Li Tao, strategic marketing director of Huntsman polyurethane in Asia-Pacific region, Huntsman has actively carried out the carbon reduction path project of polyurethane industry with the Shanghai Institute of Advanced Studies of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and will jointly study the carbon footprint assessment of the whole life cycle of polyurethane raw material production, system material production, product production and product application scenarios, and complete the carbon assessment and carbon accounting of three typical polyurethane products.
CCUS is one of the key technologies to cope with global climate change. Shao Yaofeng, sales director of energy solutions business in the Asia-Pacific region of Dow (China) Investment Co., Ltd., pointed out that the biggest change and difficulty in the development of carbon capture technology is to combine carbon capture and emission reduction, and how to upgrade or reform the original carbon capture - release technology into capture - storage - pressurization/utilization technology to achieve carbon reduction in the whole production process.
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