natural gas chemical is one of the chemical industry branch. natural gas as raw materials to produce chemical products industry is an integral part of the fuel chemical industry, natural gas chemical industry can also be attributed to petrochemicals. natural gas chemical industry in general include natural gas purification separation, chemical processing.

world natural gas chemical industry development:
natural gas chemical industry – about 50 countries in varying degrees of development of the world’s natural gas chemical gas chemical industry in the world.

distribution: natural gas chemical industry more developed countries are the united states, the soviet union and canada. us development of natural gas chemical industry first, product variety and production in the first place. natural gas consumed in the chemical industry, accounting for the country’s chemical industry consumes more than half the total amount of raw materials and fuels. the mid-1970s the soviet union adjusted the chemical industry policy, accelerate the development of natural gas chemical production. in the siberian gas producing areas of new production equipment, used in large-scale synthetic ammonia, methanol and ethylene, carbon disulfide. its natural gas chemical products after the united states. canada has abundant natural gas resources, for ammonia, urea, methanol and ethylene production.

the main direction of the product:
in 1980 the world’s major countries, natural gas chemical products more than 150mt. with an annual output of more than 10mt products are ammonia, urea, methanol, formaldehyde and ethylene.

ammonia production in the world, about 80% of natural gas as raw material. world ammonia plant construction key is being used by other countries in europe and america in the past turned to natural gas resource-rich regions. naphtha or fuel oil as a raw material will gradually ammonia plant to natural gas or coal as raw material transition (see ammonia industry).
methanol is one of the world’s bulk organic chemical products, 70% of the world’s methanol production using natural gas as raw material. methanol application direction in addition to maintaining the traditional uses, developing alternative energy sources and the use of new chemical products.
ethylene production capacity of natural gas as raw materials account for about 32% of the world’s ethylene production capacity of its ethylene yield about twice as high as the raw material than naphtha and other light petroleum fractions. with the increase and ethane, propane recoveries increase natural gas production, the proportion is gradually increasing.
natural gas chemical industry – china natural gas chemical industry began in the 20th century, the early 1960s, is now beginning to take shape, mainly in sichuan, heilongjiang, liaoning, shandong province and taiwan. china natural gas is mainly used for the production of nitrogen, followed by the production of methanol, formaldehyde, acetylene, methylene chloride, carbon tetrachloride, carbon disulfide, nitromethane, hydrocyanic acid and carbon black, and extracting helium. since the 1970s, it has built more than a dozen natural gas and associated gas as the raw material of large-scale ammonia plant, and a number of medium and small ammonia plant, ammonia production of raw materials to make the national structure, the proportion of natural gas about 30%; also built the acetylene gas plant to produce vinyl acetate and vinylon, acetylene tail gas is used to produce methanol. natural gas thermal chlorination of methylene chloride for photosensitive material industry as a solvent. china’s first natural gas chemical processing products output of about 14 times that of the early 1970s.

prospects china’s natural gas industry:
china’s sustained and rapid economic development momentum continues, but security was extremely economical energy power shortage. china’s energy structure dominated by coal, oil, natural gas proportion is far lower than the world average. along with the growing demand for energy, increase natural gas in the energy mix and the introduction of lng will be the proportion of china’s energy structure optimization, an effective solution to security of energy supply and environmental protection to achieve sustainable economic and social development plays an important role .
with the widespread use of natural gas, natural gas supply has become a national energy security in an increasingly important part. china’s future demand for natural gas will significantly exceed the growth rate of coal and oil. by 2010, natural gas in the proportion of total energy demand in 1998 from 2.1% to 6% in 2020 and further increased to 10%. by then an estimated natural gas demand will reach 93.8 billion cubic meters and 203.7 billion cubic meters.

natural gas chemical raw materials use:
natural gas chemical industry has become a major pillar of the world’s chemical industry, the world’s 80% ammonia, 90% of methanol from natural gas in the united states more than 75% of acetylene from natural gas production, while china is less than 20%, respectively, showing chemical utilization of natural gas has great room for development.
1、the production of ammonia nitrogen irreplaceable raw materials, as oil prices remain high, leading to heavy oil prices, natural gas as raw material fertilizer than heavy oil as raw material cost of fertilizer has obvious advantages, so that the first gas fertilizer become the focus of fertilizer production. due to advances in technology, the first oil to gas the first fertilizer has been relatively mature.
2、methanol is carbon – a key chemical products, but also is an important chemical raw materials, is also one of the clean energy future, both widely used in the production of plastics, synthetic fibers, synthetic rubber, dyes, paints, spices, fodder, medicine, feed , pesticides, etc., can be blended with gasoline or replace gasoline as power fuel. due to strong demand for nstream products of methanol, methanol is expected that by 2010 the total demand will reach 700 million tons. in recent years, there are conditions where natural gas in the pipeline are a new methanol plant on a larger scale.
3、the development of natural gas chemical industry and chlor-alkali industry development can also be combined with the main output of chlorine products pvc chlor-alkali industry has greatly exceeded 2 million t, more than 50% are still using calcium carbide method, ethylene pvc by ethylene feedstock sources only limit 30% -35% of the total pvc imports vcm or edc production of pvc, which now accounts for 15% -20% of the total. because calcium carbide process pvc serious environmental pollution, subject to environmental policy restrictions, natural gas for the production of acetylene and then processed into pvc, with the cost of domestic production of calcium carbide method is basically flat, and environmental advantages.

in addition, as the international gtl technology and related technological breakthroughs, synthetic natural gas has the competitive natural gas to synthetic oil does not contain aromatic hydrocarbons, heavy metals, sulfur and other environmental pollutants, is environmentally friendly high-quality fuel, a majority of consumer market.