On May 12, the steam cracking unit of the Phase I Inner Mongolia Baofeng Coal-to-Olefins Project was successfully started up, producing on-spec products. This milestone marks the full commissioning of the project’s first phase.

The Inner Mongolia Baofeng Coal-to-Olefins Phase I project is currently the world’s largest single-site coal-to-olefins (CTO) facility. The project consists of three process units. Once fully operational, it achieves an annual output of 3 million tons of olefin products using coal as a feedstock. It received approval from China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment for its environmental impact assessment on November 23, 2022. Construction of Phase I officially began in late March 2023. The first process unit and the entire tank farm were commissioned on November 25, 2024. The second process unit began operation on January 18, 2025, followed by the third on March 21, 2025. Our company served as the main design contractor for the project, undertaking design for 52 major units, including three DMTO units, one steam cracking unit, and the entire tank farm. The DMTO units adopt the new-generation DMTO-III (Dimethyl Ether to Olefins) technology co-developed with the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics. The olefin separation and steam cracking units use licensed technology from KBR.

Currently, several other DMTO-based units designed and EPC-managed by our company are under development and construction. Among them is a DMTO-III unit with a capacity of 1.35 million tons of olefins per year—the highest capacity for a single methanol-to-olefins unit globally—poised to set a new world record once operational.