Chinas third national oil company is preparing to open its first base oil plant, and it is already planning its second.
China National Offshore Oil Company, commonly known as CNOOC, told Lube Report last week that it is scheduled to open a naphthenic base oil plant in June at an existing refinery, CNOOC Bitumen, in Binzhou, in the coastal province of Shandong. The plants capacity will be 300,000 metric tons per year (5,750 barrels per day), according to Sun Yuanbi, who added that the output will include approximately 80,000 tons of electrical transformer oil, 120,000 tons of process oils and 100,000 tons of aromatic extracts.
Built at a cost of approximately 100 million yuan (U.S. $12.9 million), the Binzhou facility will be CNOOCs first base oil plant. Sun said that project is different from a plan the company unveiled in November 2005 to build a 400,000-ton naphthenic plant. Originally officials said that facility would come online by this summer, but Sun said the opening has been delayed until the end of 2008.
Previously CNOOC had not specified the location of the 400,000-ton plant, but Sun said it will be built in Zhanjiang, in southeastern Guangdong Province.
China currently has 21 base oil plants, all operated by the countrys two other national oil companies, PetroChina Co. and Sinopec (China Petroleum & Chemical Corp.). The country imports large volumes of base oil to meet its lubricant blending needs. CNOOC has said it sees a particular need for naphthenic base oils.