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Natural environment is where we human beings live; therefore, protecting the natural environment is tantamount to protecting ourselves.
As a responsible major energy and chemical company, Sinopec always concerns itself with environmental protection, pursues clean production, produces clean products, strengthens waste control, and actively develops recycling economy in order to become a greener company.
The global financial crisis put Sinopec in a difficult position in 2009. Despite the daunting challenges, the company worked harder than ever before to pursue environmental protection while ensuring business development, with remarkable achievements made in energy saving, and emission reduction, stack gas desulfurization and below-limit emissions. Industrial water consumption dropped by 3.3% and discharged industrial wastewater decreased by 2.0% based on the 2008 level. The COD level in discharged wastewater dropped by 3.6% and sulfur dioxide emissions decreased by 13.9% compared with the 2008 level, with 96% of wastewater meeting the national discharge standard. No environmental pollution incidents occurred throughout the year. Compared with 2005, COD emissions dropped by 16.3%, and sulfur dioxide emissions dropped by 31.0% in 2009, hitting the emission reduction targets set by the central government for the 11th five-year plan period one year ahead of schedule.
Ensure cleanliness throughout product lifecycle from production to consumption, and reduce emissions with every effort
Sinopec focuses on cleanliness throughout the product lifecycle from production to consumption, endeavors to control and reduce emissions throughout product lifecycle and make greater contribution to a cleaner environment.
Pursue clean production and reduce emissions at the source
Sinopec strives for clean production and works hard to control generation of pollutants at the source.
We continued investing more in environmental protection and environmental hazard control in 2009. Additional investment was made in environmental protection as evidenced by the fact that environmental investment in construction of refineries alone amounted to 600 million RMB. 105 environmental hazards were identified and resolved with capital investment of 360 million RMB in 2009, with focus on air pollution control, sewage control and provision of online monitoring equipment.
We strengthened environmental management on construction sites, supervised and inspected to ensure environmental impact assessment was conducted and HSE policy was fully complied with on every construction site and that new construction projects were all implemented in an environmentally preferable manner.
Online environmental monitoring plan was implemented across the company, and online emission monitoring system was set up at some Sinopec companies to realize real-time emission monitoring.
We addressed environmental issues by evaluating the environmental performance of Sinopec companies, developing and implementing pollution control plans and corrective measures, specifying environmental requirements and criteria and helping them realize below-limit pollutant emissions.
We continued to strive for clean production in every aspect of our operations. In 2009, two Sinopec companies underwent preliminary evaluation, three underwent evaluation and four underwent clean production review. Through these efforts, environmental awareness at Sinopec was significantly raised, management performance remarkably bettered, emissions of main pollutants drastically dropped and energy conservation continuously improved.
At the end of 2009, 18 Sinopec companies, including Zhenhai Refinery, were accredited to ISO14000 standard.
Sinopec reviews the qualification certificates of its suppliers every year, including ISO quality accreditation, environmental certification and special compulsory certification status, in order to challenge suppliers to improve work environment, improve product quality and better protect natural environment.
Produce clean products and reduce emissions on the other end of product lifecycles
Since compulsory elimination of leaded gasoline in China in 2000, the quality of oil products has drastically improved throughout the country, reaching a target within ten years that cost developed countries several decades to achieve. Sinopec made tremendous contribution to this great achievement.
Between 2005 and 2009, Sinopec invested 17.4 billion RMB in oil product quality improvement and equipment upgrading. In 2009, Sinopec began providing clean fuels that meet the national standard III, Shanghai municipal standard IV and Beijing municipal standard IV in 14 provinces and municipalities including Beijing and Shanghai.
In June 2006, the central government promulgated national vehicle diesel oil quality standard III (sulfur content no higher than 350ppm), to be effective as of July 1, 2011. Meanwhile, revision of quality standard for regular diesel oil is also underway. To realize quality upgrading of vehicle diesel oil, Sinopec is actively building hydrogenation refining, cracking and modification plants with capital investment of 6.7 billion RMB.
Technological innovation provides a solid cornerstone for oil product quality upgrading. Focusing on technology development, Sinopec developed a pool of proprietary technologies for main refining and chemical processes, with capabilities to build 10 MTA refineries and 1 MTA ethylene plants using its own proprietary technologies. In recent years, many technological achievements were made due to improvement of R&D system and increased R&D expenditures. Between 2005 and 2009, Sinopec acquired 3,955 domestic patents and 377 foreign patents. As at the end of 2009, Sinopec won a national top technology award and 44 national awards for technical invention and 278 national awards for technological advancement. Sinopec is one of the most technologically capable companies in China.
Following a unique approach to technology development called “ten dragons”, Sinopec successfully developed major technologies covering oil & gas exploration and development, refining, chemicals and chemical fibers, energy conservation, safety and environmental protection. Currently, Sinopec has the capabilities to produce gasoline and diesel oil products that meet Euro IV standard, with greater efforts being made to develop technology for production of gasoline and diesel oil products that meet Euro V. Product quality improvements at Sinopec are mainly driven by self-developed technology.
Sinopec products are highly recognized for their contribution to the 60th National Day celebrations
Over the years, Sinopec provided a great quantity of high-quality special-purpose lubricant and grease products to aerospace and shipbuilding industries in China, winning high recognition of users. In 2009, Sinopec was engaged to develop and produce specialty oil products for use in equipment and floats used during the National Day parade, which met the user requirements. Sinopec Beijing Oil Co., Ltd. refueled the floats during the parade seven times and was thus recognized by the State Assets Supervision and Administration Commission as an advanced organization in supporting 60th National Day Parade.
To contribute to a successful National Day parade, Sinopec improved the stiffness of the carpets for use during the parade, set up an installation team with experience gained from Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, formulated a detailed carpet installation plan and preventive measures against rainfall and finally laid 8,000 square meters carpet on Tian’anmen Rostrum.
Special-purpose high-grade asphalt specially developed by Sinopec for the National Day Parade was applied on Chang An Avenue of Beijing for the first time. With world-class performance in resistance to crack, skid and rut and noise reduction, this product meets the demanding requirements of the National Day parade and everyday traffic and can increase the road service life to about 15 years.
Strengthen waste control and strive for below-limit emissions
The oil production and refining process inevitably generates wastewater, exhaust gases and waste residues. Sinopec has always been working on waste control and minimizing emissions.
Over the past year, we made more investment in desulfurization for coal or coke-fired furnaces. As at the end of 2009, stack gas desulfurization projects of all Sinopec refineries received approval for capital investment. Of these projects, 8 proposals were approved in 2009 with approved investment of about 700 million RMB. It is predicted that when these projects are completed, over 200,000 tons of sulfur emissions will be avoided.
In 2009 several large sewage treatment plant deodorization and sewage treatment projects were approved, involving total investment of over 300 million RMB.
After completing the oil & gas recovery project for tank farms and gas stations in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei Province, Sinopec carried out oil and gas recovery at tank farms and gas stations in Guangdong, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, contributing to the environmental improvement and energy conservation.
No serious leakage of hazardous substances occurred at Sinopec throughout 2009.
Despite the increased crude oil output, throughput and deterioration (average sulfur content in crude oil rose from 0.9% in 2005 to 1.03% in 2009), we managed to ensure that over 96% of discharged effluents met the discharge standard, reduced COD emissions by 3.6% and dioxide sulfur emissions by 13.9% over the last year, with more remarkable improvement realized in per unit output emission.
Develop recycling economy and turn wastes into valuables
Sinopec actively pursues recycling economy, effective utilization and recycling of resources and comprehensive utilization of side products to realize low consumption, low emissions and high efficiency.
Stripped gas from refineries was used for construction of concentration units or ethylene-based ethyl benzene production plants. In 2009, five projects were completed or approved, resulting in total utilization of over 100,000 tons of ethylene out of stripped gas.
Ethylene was used to generate side products of C4 and C5 through cracking process. In 2009, cracking-based full C5 separation was realized in Shanghai, with two other C5 separation projects expected to commence in Tianjin and Yanshan respectively. We are planning to build a commercial-scale C4 plant in Yanshan using self-developed olefin disproportionation technology.
In 2009, 50 lighter hydrocarbon recovery projects were implemented, resulting in annual recovery capacity of about 3.51 million tons.
Through gasification of feedstock used for hydrogen production and recovery of hydrogen-rich gases, about 297,000 tons of naphtha in hydrogen-generating feedstock can be replaced and 137,000 standard cubic meters of hydrogen recovered per hour.
Liquefied gas components were recovered from coking plant. We completed renovation of ten coking plants for greater absorption capacity and stability, resulting in annual liquefied gas recovery capacity of 200,000 tons.
Sinopec established a leadership team and published an implementation plan for the campaign. Across the company, over 1,200 safety lectures were delivered, 48,000 emergency drills conducted and over 1,800 safety quizzes held, involving over 440,000 employee participants.
We solicited contributions from all employees that highlighted safety awareness and best practices including video clips and articles, which were then prepared into video discs and pamphlets for distribution to employees at all levels.
Various events and activities were conducted to raise employee safety awareness, including a Safety Month campaign and wintertime 100-day safety competition.
With the “I Safe” campaign, a safety-centered environment was created, and employees became more aware of the need to always act with safety in mind.
Protect and improve the ecological environment
Oil & gas exploration and development and the construction of oil and gas transmission pipelines inevitably cause damage to the ecological environment. Sinopec pays great attention to restoration and rehabilitation of ecosystem around abandoned wells and along the oil and gas pipelines in an effort to minimize the impact of its production and operations on the environment.
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