China’s Yangzi Petrochemical Co Ltd expects a nearly 23 per cent jump in crude throughput in 2005 against this year’s rates to supply feedstock to an affiliated petrochemical project, a company official said.

Yangzi, one of China’s top producers of aromatics and plastics, aimed to push crude runs to full rates at eight million tonnes per year in 2005, up from this year’s projected level of 6.5 million tonnes.
“We could be processing up to eight million tonnes next year to supply the Yangzi-BASF project,” said the official.
Yangzi-BASF, a joint-venture of Sinopec Corp, Yangzi’s parent firm, and German giant BASF, is slated to start an ethylene complex in the first half of 2005.