REGIONAL> Development
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REGIONAL> Development
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Dazhou to be sulfur producing base
By Huang Zhiling (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-06-16 10:13 Because demands exceed production, sulfur prices have been steadily on the rise in the world market, according to Qi Yan, executive director of the China Sulfur Industrial Association. "In January last year, my company spent less than 2,000 yuan importing 1 ton of sulfur, but it has to pay 5,800 yuan for the same amount of sulfur at present," says Tang Shenghui, an official with the Yongli Chemical Industrial Shareholding Co Ltd in Zhuzhou, Hunan province, in the National Sulfur-related Chemical Industrial Forum held recently in Dazhou. China's annual sulfur output is 1 million tons, while its domestic consumption exceeds 10 million tons. Each year, the country has to import about 9 million tons from abroad. "Rising prices in the international sulfur market have had an adverse effect on many industrial sectors in China, and development of sulfur in Dazhou will be significant for the country's sulfur-related chemical sectors," Liu says. Sulfur is indispensable to production of phosphate fertilizer, rubber, pesticides, medicine, food additives and lubricating oil. "Dazhou has built a natural gas, energy and chemical industrial park with an area of 30 sq km and the sulfur-related sector has become an important component of the park," Luo said. "When construction of desulfurizing plants invested by China Petroleum and Chemical Corp and CNPC is finished, Dazhou's annual sulfur output will surpass 4 million tons in 2010, accounting for half of the country's total," he said. Soaring energy demand and the government's support of natural gas use has boosted China's natural gas development. The country has experienced double-digit growth in natural gas output and consumption in each of the past three years. According to statistics of the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Association, China produced 69.31 billion cu m of natural gas in 2007, up 23.1 percent from a year earlier.
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