亚洲炼油产业将继续蓬勃发展|炼油厂_新浪财经

原标题：亚洲炼油产业将继续蓬勃发展

　　中国石化新闻网讯据5月6日Rigzone报道，有关石油需求峰值和化石燃料即将退出市场的预测，将对亚洲炼油厂造成沉重的打击。要知道，在全球四大石油消费国中，有三个位于该地区，且原油处理能力超过全球三分之一。但令人意外的是，亚洲炼油企业正以惊人的速度扩张，甚至建造了规模庞大的新工厂，其设计运行时间至少为半个世纪。

　　这是怎么回事?

　　在为全球汽车提供了一个世纪的动力之后，随着汽车开始转向电池，船舶开始燃烧天然气，以及创新技术带来氢气等其他能源，炼油商不得不为未来的无油计划做准备。高盛集团(Goldman Sachs Group Inc.)预计，石油运输需求最早将在2026年见顶。

　　壳牌负责全球商业环境的副总裁杰里米·边沁(Jeremy Bentham)表示：“亚洲将成为全球活动的中心，因此，亚洲在开拓清洁技术开发方面做出的选择是非常重要的。经济发展将以亚洲为中心，因此能源消费也将以亚洲为中心，因此有机会率先部署清洁技术。”

　　炼油商已经开始重新改革业务的漫长道路。过去几个月，韩国、中国和印度的加工企业纷纷宣布了“净零”目标，即转向氢燃料和碳捕获行业。但在这些承诺的背后，是一种商业模式，在未来几十年里，这种模式将继续依赖对传统汽车燃料不断增长的需求，以及石化产品和塑料消费的更快增长。

　　伍德麦肯兹（Wood Mackenzie）亚太炼油和石油市场研究主管古普塔(Sushant Gupta)表示:“能源转型已经在很多行业中发生了，但在亚洲，未来20年，我们仍会看到运输燃料的需求。它的增幅会变慢，但仍然会有。”

　　以下是亚洲炼油业务将继续蓬勃发展的六大原因

　　一是继续保持汽油的产出。

　　车用汽油和柴油可能是第一批退出炼油厂的主要产品，但这种情况在亚洲不太可能很快就发生。据行业咨询公司FGE预测，到2023年底，全球炼油产能将减少约350万桶/天，比已经宣布的还要多100万桶，不过，亚洲新落成的大型炼油厂具有现代化设施的优势，且靠近不断增长的市场。

　　虽然亚洲炼油厂生产的车用燃料会相对更多些，但随着汽车制造商转向电力驱动，成熟的西方市场加工商可能很快就会看到需求见顶。壳牌的路易斯安那修道院工厂、马拉松石油公司的三家工厂和Phillips 66公司的两家工厂要么被关闭，要么被改造成石油终端或生物燃料工厂，原因是人们担心汽油需求或将永远无法从疫情引发的低迷经济中恢复。壳牌宣布，将出售其普吉特桑德炼油厂(Puget Sound Refinery)，因为该公司的重点是那些已经整合了炼油厂和化工厂的综合炼油厂，这是对石化行业未来增长方向的选择。根据国际能源署的数据，美国炼油厂平均近80%的产出是汽油或中间馏分——主要是柴油。

　　古普塔表示:“工厂将关闭，现有炼油厂将进行转型升级，将产量从运输燃料转向石化产品。但即便如此，到2040年，预计全球汽油和柴油产量仅会下降2.5%至3%。”

　　一些燃料市场将比其他市场持续发展更长的时间。虽然天然气和其他替代能源正成为大型船舶日益重要的燃料，但要使渡船、渔船和小船不再使用船用柴油，还需要几十年的时间。而航空煤油可能仍将是大型飞机唯一可行的推进能源，直到本世纪下半叶。

　　二是会产生更多的塑料。

　　利用现有的工厂，将更多的产能转移到塑料和聚合物上相对容易。IEA预测，到2030年，石化产品将占全球石油需求增长的三分之一以上，到2050年占近一半。

　　即使在新冠肺炎爆发后的世界里，消除一次性塑料的运动重新兴起，但是，对其他石化产品的需求，包括从水管到指甲油的一切产品，预计这些需求仍将持续增长。亚洲不断扩大的中产阶级将推动对消费品以及建筑和包装中使用的塑料的需求。具有讽刺意味的是，据FGE称，即使是汽车和飞机制造商，在努力减轻汽车重量以达到排放标准时，也会使用更多的塑料。

　　FGE称，总而言之，到2050年，全球塑料消费量将从2019年的水平增加60%以上，接近6亿吨，这要求炼油厂每天额外生产700万桶原料。

　　高盛(Goldman Sachs)于4月曾表示:“在经济增长和消费增长(尤其是新兴市场)的推动下，石化产品将成为石油需求的基本负载。”

　　世界十大炼油企业中就有三个来自韩国，未来4-5年将有4个新的蒸汽裂解炉投入生产，用于制造乙烯。此外，拥有全球最大炼油企业的印度信实工业有限公司（Reliance Industries Ltd.）计划取代柴油和汽油等公路燃料的销售，最终只生产航空燃料和石化产品，这是该公司到2035年实现净零生产计划的一部分。同时，其竞争对手印度石油公司(Indian Oil Corp.)是印度最大的炼油商，该公司计划将旗下9家炼油厂的石化产品产量提高一倍。

　　三是炼油商朝着氢能转型。

　　最终，传统运输燃料市场将枯竭，炼油厂已经开始研究替代燃料。从他们传统的商业模式来看，也许最有前途的是氢。氢和汽油一样，是一种可燃、可储存、可运输的燃料，可以为各种型号的车辆提供动力。

　　印度石油公司研发总监拉马库马尔(S.S.V. Ramakumar)表示：“氢是最终的绿色能源选择。”该公司正在新德里开展一个试点项目，用掺入天然气的氢为公交车提供动力。他补充道：“不过，氢要想成为主流能源，还有很长的路要走。”

　　壳牌公司的边沁指出:“在某些情况下，氢以气态或液态形式存在。人们正在寻找氢的载体，如氨，并可能将其作为航运燃料。”

　　炼油商们已经跻身于最大的氢生产商之列，因为他们用氢气来脱除燃料中的硫，并最大限度地生产汽油和其他轻质燃料。由于市场需要的汽油更少，其中一些氢可以被转移。但据拉马库马尔表示，目前这种气体的生产主要是使用化石资源，而每千克氢产生约10千克二氧化碳。

　　像大多数研究氢的公司一样，印度石油公司最终依靠风能、太阳能和水力发电来通过电解生产无碳氢，同时，该公司也在考虑从压缩沼气中制造燃料。

　　无论采用何种生产方法，如果要在商业上与天然气展开竞争，制造氢气的成本必须大幅降低。这可能意味着要找到拥有廉价可再生能源的地区，比如智利和沙特阿拉伯，或者依赖改进的技术。据彭博社报道，根据印度国家氢能任务路线图，该国可以使用可再生能源制造一些世界上最便宜的氢。

　　四是生物燃料的制造。

　　可以说，氢并不是唯一的选择。在印度尼西亚和马来西亚等生产棕榈油的国家，一种流行的替代方法是改造炼油厂生产生物燃料。边沁指出:“虽然，可用于开发这种燃料的植被和土地数量是有限的，但它们确实存在，而且将发挥作用。”

　　作为世界上最大的棕榈油生产国，印尼正计划在现有的炼油厂生产更多的生物燃料，并建立专门的炼油厂将棕榈油转化为生物柴油。去年，该公司将棕榈油生物柴油的混合比例提高到了30%。美国最大的炼油商马拉松石油公司正在把位于北达科他州Dickinson的一家工厂改造成生产可再生柴油的工厂，而Phillips 66公司位于旧金山附近的Rodeo炼油厂将从废弃食用油和其他脂肪中提炼燃料。

　　亚洲和全球各地的炼油商也在投资可再生能源、能源储存和其他替代燃料的一系列技术。印度石油公司正在与以色列初创公司Phinergy一起评估基于铝-空气技术的原型电池。拉马库马尔表示，试验可能需要6个月到一年的时间，如果成功，最终将形成一个吉瓦规模的制造设施。

　　五是碳捕获行业的发展。

　　即使改用塑料和氢气，炼油厂和它们生产的燃料仍然会产生温室气体，所以该计划的第三部分必须包括捕获这些气体并存储或重复使用它们的方法。一般来说，实现这一目标的方法过于昂贵，难以商业化，但提高对二氧化碳排放的罚款和增加在技术上的支出可能会平衡这一等式。

　　六是走向变革是个正确的选择。

　　电动汽车等技术的迅速普及给石油行业带来了半个世纪以来最大的冲击，要想走出已经开始的变革危机并非易事。在本世纪下半叶，炼油厂的数量可能会大大减少，而那些幸存下来的炼油厂将需要迅速适应，拥抱新的市场和新的生产体系。

　　WoodMac的Gupta表示：“炼油商不能再忽视这些新兴技术，也不能再仅仅依赖传统炼油，要知道，非传统的方式也将变得传统。”

　　王佳晶摘译自 Rigzone

　　原文如下：

　　6 Reasons Asia Oil Refiners Are Not Going Away Soon

　　Predictions of peak oil and the impending demise of fossil fuels will hit Asian oil refiners especially hard. The region is home to three of the top four oil-guzzling nations, and more than a third of global crude processing capacity. Yet, Asian refiners are expanding at a breakneck pace, even building massive new plants designed to run for at least half a century.

　　What is going on?

　　After a century of powering the world’s vehicles, oil refiners are having to plan for an oil-free future in mobility as cars begin switching to batteries, ships burn natural gas, and innovation brings on other energy sources such as hydrogen. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. predicts oil demand for transportation will peak as early as 2026.

　　Yet, even as a slew of headlines announce oil major BP Plc selling its prized Alaskan fields or Royal Dutch Shell Plc pulling the plug on refineries from Louisiana to the Philippines, Asia’s big refineries are planning for a much longer transition. Chinese refining capacity has nearly tripled since the turn of the millennium, and the nation will end more than a century of U.S. dominance this year. And the capacity of the biggest country will continue climbing – to about 20 million barrels a day by 2025, from 17.4 million barrels at the end of 2020. India’s processing is also rising rapidly and could jump by more than half to 8 million barrels a day in the same time.

　　“Asia is going to be the center of global activity and hence the choices that are being made in Asia about pioneering cleaner technology development, or not, are very important,” said Jeremy Bentham, vice president of global business environment at Royal Dutch Shell Group. “Economic development is going to be very Asian centered, hence the consumption of energy will be very Asian centered and hence then the opportunity to take a lead in deploying clean technologies is there.”

　　Refiners have begun the long path of reinventing their business. There has been a flurry of announcements from processors in South Korea, China and India in the past few months about ‘net-zero’ targets, switching to hydrogen and capturing carbon. But behind those promises is a business model that will continue to rely for several decades on rising demand for traditional vehicle fuels and even faster growth in the use of petrochemicals and plastics.

　　“Energy transition is happening in many ways already,” said Sushant Gupta, research director for Asia Pacific refining and oil markets at Wood Mackenzie. “But in Asia, over the next two decades, we still see transport fuel demand. It will be slower, but will still be there.”

　　Here, then, is a roadmap for Asian oil refiners to make it to 2100 by adapting their businesses in stages.

　　1. Keep making gasoline

　　Gasoline and diesel for vehicles may be the first major product area to vanish from refineries, but it is unlikely to happen soon in Asia. About 3.5 million barrels per day of global capacity will be shuttered by the end of 2023 -- 1 million barrels more than has already been announced, industry consultant FGE predicts. But Asia’s big, new refineries have the advantage of modern facilities, located close to growing markets.

　　While Asian refiners produce more vehicle fuel, processors in the mature Western markets are likely to see demand peak sooner as automakers switch to electric propulsion. Already, Shell’s Convent Louisiana facility, three plants of Marathon Petroleum Corp. and two of Phillips 66 are being either shut down or converted into oil terminals or biofuel plants on concern that gasoline demand will never recover from the pandemic-induced slump. Shell announced on Tuesday an agreement to sell its Puget Sound Refinery as it focuses on sites that have integrated oil refineries and chemical plants -- a bet on the future growth of petrochemicals. Almost 80% of US refinery output on average is gasoline or middle distillates – a category that is mostly diesel, according to the IEA.

　　“There will be closures and there will be the transformation of existing refineries to shift yields from transport fuels to petrochemicals,” Gupta said. Even so, he expects gasoline and diesel yields globally to drop by only 2.5%-3% by 2040.

　　Some fuel markets will last longer than others. While natural gas and alternatives are becoming increasingly important fuels for big ships, it will take decades to wean the armadas of ferries, fishing vessels and small craft off marine diesel. And jet kerosene will probably remain the only viable propulsion for large aircraft until well into the second half of the century.

　　2. Produce more plastic

　　Shifting more capacity to plastics and polymers can be done relatively easily using existing plants. Petrochemicals will account for more than a third of global oil demand growth to 2030 and nearly half through 2050, the International Energy Agency predicts.

　　Even if the drive to eliminate single-use plastics revives in a post-Covid world, the demand for other petrochemical products, which include everything from water pipes to nail polish, is predicted to keep rising. Asia’s expanding middle class will drive demand for consumer goods and plastics used in buildings and packaging. Ironically, even manufacturers of autos and airplanes will use more plastic as they strive to lighten vehicles to meet emissions standards, according to FGE.

　　The overall result is that global plastics consumption will rise more than 60% to close to 600 million tons by 2050 from 2019 levels, requiring refiners to produce an additional 7 million barrels a day in feedstock, FGE said.

　　“Petrochemicals will become the new base-load for oil demand, driven by economic growth and rising consumption especially in emerging markets,” Goldman Sachs said last month.

　　In South Korea, home to three of the world’s 10 biggest refining complexes, four new steam crackers will come onstream over the next 4-5 years to make ethylene, the building block for plastics, according to Gupta. India’s Reliance Industries Ltd., which owns the world’s biggest refining complex, plans to replace sales of road fuels like diesel and gasoline, eventually producing only jet fuel and petrochemicals, as part of a plan to reach net zero by 2035. Rival Indian Oil Corp., the nation’s biggest refiner, aims to double petrochemicals output from its nine refineries.

　　3. Switch to hydrogen

　　Eventually, markets for traditional transportation fuel will dry up and refiners have already started working on replacements. Perhaps the most promising from the point of view of their traditional business model is hydrogen, which, like gasoline, is a combustible, storable and transportable fuel that could power vehicles of all sizes and types.

　　“Hydrogen is the ultimate green option,” said to S.S.V. Ramakumar, director for research and development at Indian Oil, which is running a pilot project in New Delhi to power buses using hydrogen spiked with natural gas. “But there is a journey for hydrogen to make to attain that status of mainstream energy source.”

　　“In some cases it will be hydrogen as a gas or liquefied form, and in some cases people are looking at carriers of hydrogen like ammonia, potentially as a fuel for marine,” said Shell’s Bentham.

　　Refiners are already among the biggest hydrogen producers because they use it to remove sulfur from fuels and to maximize production of gasoline and other lighter fuels. With less gasoline needed, some of that hydrogen can be diverted. But current production of the gas is largely powered using fossil sources, with every kilogram of hydrogen producing about 10 kilograms of CO2, according to Ramakumar.

　　Like most companies studying hydrogen, Indian Oil is banking on eventually using electricity from wind, solar and hydro power to make carbon-free hydrogen by electrolysis, but it’s also looking at making the fuel from compressed biogas.

　　Whatever the production method, the cost of making hydrogen needs to drop substantially if it’s to compete commercially with natural gas. That may mean finding places with cheap renewable energy, such as Chile and Saudi Arabia, or relying on improved technology. Under India’s National Hydrogen Energy Mission roadmap, the country could use renewables to make some of the world’s cheapest hydrogen, according to BloombergNEF.

　　4. Make biofuels

　　Hydrogen isn’t the only option. An alternative popular in countries like Indonesia and Malaysia that produce palm oil, is to adapt refineries to produce biofuels. “There are limitations to the amount of vegetation and land available for developing those kinds of fuels, but they are there and they will play a role,” said Shell’s Bentham.

　　Indonesia, the world’s largest palm-oil producer, is planning to produce more biofuels at existing petroleum refineries and also set up dedicated refineries to turn palm oil into biodiesel. It increased the required blend of palm biodiesel to 30% last year. Marathon Petroleum Corp., the largest U.S. refiner, is converting a plant in Dickinson, North Dakota, to make renewable diesel, while Phillips 66’s Rodeo refinery near San Francisco will make fuel from used cooking oil and other fats.

　　Refiners in Asia and across the globe are also investing in a host of technologies in renewables, energy storage and other alternative fuels. Indian Oil is evaluating prototype batteries based on aluminum-air technology with Israeli startup Phinergy. Trials could take six months to a year and, if successful, would lead eventually to a gigawatt-scale manufacturing facility, Ramakumar said.

　　5. Capture carbon

　　Even with the switch to plastics and hydrogen, refineries and the fuels they make will still produce greenhouse gases, so a third part of the plan has to include ways to capture those gases and store or reuse them. The methods to do this have generally been too expensive to be commercial, but rising penalties for CO2 emissions and increased spending on technology are likely to balance the equation.

　　6. Get it right

　　The speedy adoption of technologies such as electric vehicles is causing the biggest shock to the oil industry in half a century and navigating a way through the changes that have already begun won’t be easy. There are likely to be far fewer oil refineries in the second half of the century and the ones that survive will need to adapt rapidly and embrace new markets and new production systems.

　　“Refiners can no longer ignore these emerging technologies and no longer can they just rely on traditional refining,” WoodMac’s Gupta said. “Non-conventional ways will become more conventional.”